Abstract
The paper is an examination of Tyler Burge’s notion of epistemic entitlement. It begins with consideration of a recent attempt to understand entitlement, including the ways in which it differs from the more traditional notion of justification (Casullo in Acta Analytica, 22, 267–279, 2007). The paper argues that each of Casullo’s central contentions rests upon confusion. More generally, the paper shows that Casullo’s interpretation tries to force Burge’s work into a framework that is not suited for it; and that the interpretation also suffers from not being even minimally informed about the actual character of Burge’s epistemological views. The paper’s second half explains the distinction between entitlement and justification, including ways in which Burge’s understanding of the relevant notions has changed over time.
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Notes
See for example Janvid (2009), Altschul (2011), Gertler (2011), Engel (2012), Graham (2012), Malmgren (2013), and Wedgwood (forthcoming). Wedgwood refers to Casullo’s paper as containing “an illuminating discussion of how to interpret Burge’s work” (2, fn. 4). And Gertler states that Casullo offers “a careful analysis of Burge’s notion of epistemic entitlement” (206).
I use bold-face type to denote representational contents and italics for emphasis and transliteration.
With the publication of Burge (2013), we have the fullest discussion yet of his notion of entitlement and of its differences with justification (see especially “Introduction” and “Epistemic Warrant: Humans and Computers”). In my critical discussion of Casullo I am going to set aside changes in Burge’s conception of justification and entitlement. I want to consider Casullo’s case only relative to the evidence that was his—or was at least available to him—at the time of his writing. In the penultimate section of the paper I will provide a summary of the changes in Burge’s views.
All unattributed intratextual page references are to Casullo (2007).
Certain elements of Burge’s views on the epistemology of interlocution have changed. He no longer holds that it is possible to be purely apriori warranted in accepting the word of another; see “Introduction” and “Postscript to ‘Content Preservation’,” both in Burge (2013). However, most of what was distinctive about his views in this area is unaffected by the change. In particular, there is very little revision necessary, in light of this development, to his explanation for our general entitlement to accept the word of others. Indeed, the formulation of (AP) which Casullo cites remains standing. Burge’s view was, and remains, that the principle is apriori knowable. This is to be distinguished from one’s warrant, in a particular case, for accepting the word of another. On Burge’s current view such a warrant is always partly—although minimally—empirical.
My discussion of Burge’s views on interlocution here glosses over the important fact that it is strictly only apparent propositional content and only apparent understanding of such, that are fundamentally at issue. I think that none of the arguments considered or given at this point is affected by this convenient oversimplification. Later, it will be necessary to be more careful.
Analysis of the so-called “basing relation” often involves reference to acts of the believing subject. This is another reason the model is inappropriate to Burge’s views on warrant. Many justifications involve inference. Inference is often an act. But no entitlement appertains to a thinker in virtue of something that she does. Entitlement is rather a matter of what a cognizer is. As Burge puts the point, “entitlement derives from jurisdiction” (1996, 116). Jurisdiction is a matter of having a certain right or power, as opposed to a benefit which accrues to one in virtue of something one does.
I am indebted to conversations with Burge here. Previous versions of the paper failed to acknowledge these problems sufficiently.
Here too I am oversimplifying. Not only the content but also the force of a piece of interlocution is relevant to our entitlement to rely upon the word of others.
This point is due to Burge.
Memory can certainly preserve non-propositional representational contents. But memory in general is not limited to so doing. Perhaps experiential memory—which, like perception, is necessarily de se in form—is constitutively involved in the preservation of non-conceptual, non-propositional representational contents. On these points, see especially Burge (2003b). And there may be other complications, for example involving proprioception. My point in the text is merely that perception is the only major and general belief-forming competence which necessarily involves non-conceptual representation.
I am intentionally omitting interlocution at this point. This is because I am uncertain about Burge’s views concerning whether subhuman animals gain knowledge and other warranted belief though testimony. A negative answer is suggested at Burge (2013, viii).
There are of course different conceptions of what it takes for a form of warrant to count as internalist or externalist. A fuller treatment would have to take cognizance of at least the most important of these. Here, I focus upon access criteria. This is partly to keep the discussion of manageable length and partly to maintain continuity with the first half of the paper.
This matter is somewhat delicate. We saw that Burge now believes that some reasoning may be modular. Qua reasoning, such a process would yield, when things go well, a justification rather than an entitlement. However, modular reasoning is inaccessible in a very strong sense. So one might think that viewing internalism and externalism in terms of accessibility is suboptimal here, since modular reasoning would then count as externalist, despite the fact that it yields justification, the internalist form of warrant. An alternative would be to view internalism as the thesis that warrants necessarily supervene upon some set of internal states. Then modular justifications could still be viewed as internalist, despite their inaccessibility. However, as I have shown, not all aspects even of non-modular inference or reasoning are internalist. These and other complications are discussed in Majors (forthcoming).
References
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Acknowledgments
Thanks to Jon Altschul and Hannes Matthiessen for comments upon an early draft of the paper. Thanks especially to Tyler Burge, who has considerably improved my understanding of his views (more specific debts to Burge are recorded in the footnotes). Needless to say, he is not to be held to account for such incompetencies as are yet exhibited.
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Majors, B. What Entitlement Is. Acta Anal 30, 363–387 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-015-0252-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-015-0252-1