Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Varieties of cognitive achievement

  • Published:
Philosophical Studies Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

According to robust virtue epistemology (RVE), knowledge is type-identical with a particular species of cognitive achievement. The identification itself is subject to some criticism on the (alleged) grounds that it fails to account for the anti-luck features of knowledge. Although critics have largely focused on environmental luck, the fundamental philosophical problem facing RVE is that it is not clear why it should be a distinctive feature of cognitive abilities that they ordinarily produce beliefs in a way that is safe. We propose a novel way to resolve this problem. Key to our proposal will be an appreciation of different representational states beholden to truth. We suggest these different representational states are distinguished by how, in the proper governance of these states, the twin goods of attaining truth and avoiding error are weighted. Moreover, we explain how varieties of representational states line up with varieties of cognitive achievement such that knowledge, cum cognitive achievement, must be (ordinarily) safe because of the kind of attempt at success that belief is—namely, an attempt that places the premium it does on avoiding error.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. See, in particular, Greco’s (2013, Sect. 1) articulation of robust virtue epistemology as making a kind of ‘genus-species’ claim, vis-à-vis the relationship between cognitive achievements and knowledge, respectively.

  2. Greco (Ibid. 2) captures the gist in his remark that ‘Knowledge is an achievement in a sense that lucky guesses (and the like) are not. This is an improvement over accounts that make the value of knowledge merely practical or instrumental. Plausibly, we value knowledge (as we value achievement in general) “for itself,” over and above its practical or instrumental value’.

  3. See fn 6.

  4. Intervening luck is characteristic of traditional Gettier-style cases, where luck intervenes between (as Unger (1967) put it) ‘the man and the fact’. See Pritchard (2005).

  5. While there are a few dissenters (e.g. Comesaña (2005); Hetherington (2013)), it is widely taken as a platitude in contemporary epistemology that knowledge excludes luck. Versions of the safety requirement for knowledge have been offered by a number of authors, including Luper (1984, 2003), Sainsbury (1997), Sosa (1999), Williamson (2002), and Pritchard (2002, 2005, 2007, 2012a, b). For a helpful recent discussion of the merits of the safety condition for knowledge, see the exchange between Pritchard (2013) and Hetherington (2013). See also Madison (2011) for a recent reply to Hetherington’s challenge of a safety condition on knowledge.

  6. See for instance Pritchard (2012a, b), Kelp (2013) and Greco (2009).

  7. See Turri (forthcoming) for similar kinds of cases.

  8. Compare here with Alfano’s (2012) discussion of what he calls “high fidelity” and “low-fidelity” virtues.

  9. Perhaps, we should include not just abilities, but competences, skills, and virtues—at least insofar as these are different.

  10. The word ‘part’ signals that, in the envisioned theory, more may be required as suggested in both Jarvis (2013) and Ichikawa and Jarvis (forthcoming).

  11. This is the suggestion of Jarvis (2013).

  12. Our italics. Cf. Chrisman (2013).

  13. An alternative way of understanding the clause “safety manifests competence” is as “truth manifests competence in a safe way.” However, this view is not apparently different from Pritchard’s (2012); it is definitely not a version of RVE.

  14. Cf. Turri’s (2011) “adept” achievement response to the Gettier problem.

  15. Alternatively, “veritic luck,” of which environmental and intervening epistemic luck are varieties. See Pritchard (2005).

  16. Consider here Goldman’s (1999) remark that epistemology is a discipline that evaluates along ‘truth-linked’ dimensions.

  17. See Carter (forthcoming) for a more detailed criticism along these lines of Turri’s approach.

  18. See here Pritchard (2009a, b, c, 2012a, b) and Kelp (2013).

  19. Greco’s use of ‘informational needs’ is motivated in part by Craig’s (1990) genealogical account of the concept of knowledge.

  20. Ibid. p. 20.

  21. As Greco (2013, pp. 13–14) acknowledges, fleshing out informational needs in epistemic terms runs the risk of making his account viciously circular.

  22. This move by Greco is also made by Sosa (2013). See here Sosa’s distinction between “inner competence” and “complete competence.”

  23. See Greco (2013, Sect. 5).

  24. While Greco (2013) does not significantly change his prior treatment of the classic barn façade case, he helpfully illustrates how his new view is supposed to handle a more sophisticated environmental luck case:

    Working Farm: Patrick is on the one working farm in Barn Facade County—it has one real barn and no barn facades. Patrick, by the way, knows nothing about the many barn facades in the area. We ask Patrick to retrieve a shovel from the barn located just ahead, and he starts walking in that direction (Greco 2013, p. 23)

    As Greco sees it, it matters (vis-à-vis whether Patrick counts as knowing) whether the conversational context is picking out informational needs substantially constrained by Patrick’s particular task here—in which case, Greco suggests, an attribution of “knowing” might well be true—or whether the conversational context picks out wider informational needs—in which case, he suggests it might well be false. He suggests at least many conversational contexts will pick out a wider informational needs.

  25. See Greco (2008, 2010).

  26. Cf. Millikan (1989), Sober (1981), and Stich (1993).

  27. Consider that when a skillful and intuitive detective’s suspicions lead in the right direction, we would not hesitate to attribute achievement even though the detective easily could have been wrong (given the scant evidence).

  28. Cf. Ball (2013) and Jarvis & Rubin (unpublished).

  29. Cf. Whiting (2012; 2013).

  30. James (1897) remarks that “There are two ways of looking at our duty in the matter of opinion.…We must know the truth; and we must avoid error—these are our first and great commandments….” This dual-characterization has been espoused in different ways by Descartes (1641), Alston (1985), Foley (1987), Goldman (1999), David (2001), Fallis (2006) and many others.

  31. We’ve made this point in a number of places, including Jarvis (2013), Jarvis & Rubin (unpublished), and Carter et al. (2013a).

  32. This argument is, in effect, a generalization of the argument given in the introduction to the effect that the problem of ordinary safety is prior to the problem of environmental luck. It is a generalization because this argument does not rely on the premise that the exercise of cognitive abilities ordinarily results in safe beliefs. Instead, the argument relies on the weaker premise that exercising cognitive abilities canonically results in less lucky beliefs.

  33. Cf. Jarvis (2013), Jarvis & Rubin (unpublished), and Carter et al. (2013a).

  34. Williamson (2002, p. 47).

  35. Cf. Williamson (2002, p. 239) on speech acts—the linguistic analogue of doxastic attitude.

  36. This is why, for instance, informational needs that are met through the practice of testimonial information exchange and dissemination largely traffic in representational states with a high epistemic pedigree. See here Craig (1990).

  37. See, for instance Stalnaker (1984, p. 15). Cf. Speaks (2006) for a criticism of this kind of proposal. See also Ross and Schroeder (2012) for a recent and different version of pragmatism about belief.

  38. Cf. Greco (2013), Ball (2013), and Jarvis & Rubin (unpublished).

  39. See Carter et al. (unpublished) for a more detailed presentation of this proposal. Cf. Turri’s (2010) suggestion that there is a hierarchy of speech acts. This is also similar to Williamson’s (2002) countable hierarchy built on the suggestion that believing <I know <p>> is taking a stronger position believing <p>. Our proposal is more radical and it does not rely on giving up the KK principle.

  40. Compare here with recent work on the speech act of ‘guaranteeing’. See here Benton and Turri (2014).

  41. Note that using the competition between gaining cognitive success and avoiding cognitive failure to individuate different doxastic attitudes seems contrary to James’s (1897) use of this competition. For example, this appears to undermine Kelly’s (2013) Jamesian argument against uniqueness as defended by White (2005).

  42. An anonymous referee worried about how postulating a dense hierarchy of representational doxastic attitudes might cohere with views in contemporary cognitive psychology. It is worth noting, however, that we are proposing a hierarchy of types and not suggesting that all—or any particular one—of this hierarchy is, in fact, instanced. Our suggestion is analogous to the suggestion that the number of content-types is infinite, which does not lose plausibility even if only a finite number of content-types are ever realized by anybody’s (token) thoughts.

  43. Carter et al. (unpublished) effectively suggests that a ranking by safety will only turn out to be partial. The rationale for this suggestion is not too difficult to see. Safety is a matter of truth in nearby worlds; strictly incommensurate kinds of safety might be distinguished by specifying distinct sets of worlds to be the nearby ones. We ignore these complications here.

  44. The credal continuum also seems to allow for this possibility—although see Carter et al. (unpublished) for some discussion of some of its potential limitations in this regard. However, our envisioned hierarchy has some potential advantages for understanding finite rational agents. It is not clear that a rational agent needs to have the capacity to have every of the representational doxastic attitudes in the hierarchy in order to have capacity to have one. In contrast, it seems hard to have the capacity to have some particular degree of credence in a proposition unless one also has the capacity to have any other competing degree of credence as well. If so, it is difficult to see how one could be a realist about credal states for finite rational agents.

  45. This last point is taken up further in Carter et al. (unpublished).

  46. A similar suggestion appears in Carter et al. (2013b).

References

  • Alfano, M. (2012). Expanding the situationist challenge to responsibilist virtue epistemology. The Philosophical Quarterly, 62(247), 223–249.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Alston, W. (1985). Concepts of epistemic justification. The Monist, 68(1), 57–89.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ball, B. (2013). Knowledge is normal belief. Analysis, 73(1), 69–76.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Benton, M. & Turri, J. (2014). Iffy predictions and proper expectations, Synthese, 191, 1857–1866. doi: 10.1007/s11229-013-0377-y.

  • Carter, J. A. (forthcoming). Robust virtue epistemology as anti-luck epistemology, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly. doi:10.1111/papq.12040.

  • Carter, J. A., Jarvis, B., & Rubin, K. (2013a). Knowledge and the value of cognitive ability. Synthese, 190(17), 3715–3729.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Carter, J. A., Jarvis, B., & Rubin, K. (2013b). Knowledge: Value on the cheap. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 91(2), 249–264.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Carter, J. A., Jarvis, B., & Rubin, K. (unpublished). Belief without credence.

  • Chrisman, M. (2013). The normative evaluation of belief and the aspectual classification of belief and knowledge attributions. The Journal of Philosophy, 109(10), 588–612.

    Google Scholar 

  • Comesaña, J. (2005). Unsafe knowledge. Synthese, 146(3), 395–404.

  • Craig, E. (1990). Knowledge and the state of nature: An essay in conceptual synthesis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • David, M. (2001). Truth as the epistemic goal. In Matthias Steup (Ed.), Knowledge, truth and duty: Essays on epistemic justification, responsibility and virtue (pp. 151–169). Oxford: OUP.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Descartes, R. (1641/1985). The philosophical writings of descartes (vol. 2). Cambridge: CUP.

  • Fallis, D. (2006). Epistemic value theory and social epistemology. Episteme, 2(3), 177–188.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Foley, R. (1987). The theory of epistemic rationality. Cambridge, MA: HUP.

  • Goldman, A. I. (1999). Knowledge in a social world. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

  • Greco, J. (2008). What’s wrong with contextualism? The Philosophical Quarterly, 58(232), 416–436.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Greco, J. (2009). Knowledge and success from ability. Philosophical Studies, 142(1), 17–26.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Greco, J. (2010). Achieving knowledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Greco, J. (2013). A (different) virtue epistemology. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 85(1), 1–26.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hetherington, S. (2013). There can be lucky knowledge. In M. Steup & J. Turri (Eds.), Contemporary debates in epistemology (2nd ed., pp. 164–176). Oxford: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ichikawa, J. J. & Jarvis, B. (forthcoming). Hybrid virtue epistemology and the a priori. In D. Dodd & E. Zardini (TBA) (Eds.), A priori justification.

  • James, W. (1897). The will to believe. New York: Longmans, Green and Company.

  • Jarvis, B. (2013). Knowledge, cognitive achievement, and environmental luck. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 94(4), 529–551.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jarvis, B. & Rubin, K. (unpublished). The evaluative and normative roles of knowledge.

  • Kelly, T. (2013). Evidence can be permissive. In Matthias Steup & John Turri (Eds.), Contemporary debates in epistemology (pp. 298–312). Oxford: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kelp, C. (2013). Knowledge: The safe-apt view. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 91(2), 265–278.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Luper, S. (1984). The epistemic predicament. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 62, 26–50.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Luper, S. (2003). Indiscernability skepticism. In S. Luper (Ed.), The skeptics: Contemporary essays (pp. 183–202). Aldershot: Ashgate.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mackie, J. L. (1955). Responsibility and language. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 33(3), 143–159.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Madison, B. J. (2011). Combating anti anti-luck epistemology. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 89(1), 47–58.

  • MIllar, A. (2010). Perceptual knowledge and recognitional abilities. In D. Pritchard, A. Millar & A. Haddock (Eds.), The nature and value of knowledge: Three investigations. Oxford University Press.

  • Millikan, R. (1989). Biosemantics. Journal of Philosophy, 86(6), 281–297.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pritchard, D. H. (2002). Resurrecting the Moorean response to the sceptic. International Journal of Philosophical Studies, 10, 283–307.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pritchard, D. H. (2005). Epistemic luck. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Pritchard, D. H. (2007). Anti-luck epistemology. Synthese, 158, 277–297.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pritchard, D. H. (2009a). Knowledge. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Pritchard, D. H. (2009b). Knowledge, understanding and epistemic value. In A. O’Hear (Ed.), Epistemology (pp. 19–43)., Royal Institute of Philosophy Lectures Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pritchard, D. H. (2009c). Apt performance and epistemic value. Philosophical Studies, 143(3), 407–416.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pritchard, D. H. (2012a). Anti-luck virtue epistemology. Journal of Philosophy, 109, 247–279.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pritchard, D. H. (2012b). In defence of modest anti-luck epistemology. In T. Black & K. Becker (Eds.), The sensitivity principle in epistemology (pp. 173–192). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Pritchard, D. H. (2013). There cannot be lucky knowledge. In M. Steup & J. Turri (Eds.), Contemporary debates in epistemology (2nd ed., pp. 152–164). Oxford: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ross, J., & Schroeder, M. (2012). Belief, credence and pragmatic encroachment. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research,. doi:10.1111/j.1933-1592.2011.00552.x.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sainsbury, R. M. (1997). Easy possibilities. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 57, 907–919.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sober, E. (1981). The evolution of rationality. Synthese, 46(1), 95–120.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sosa, E. (1999). How to defeat opposition to Moore. Noûs, 33(s13), 141–153.

  • Sosa, E. (2007). A virtue epistemology: Apt belief and reflective knowledge (Vol. 1). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Sosa, E. (2009). Knowing full well: The normativity of beliefs as performances. Philosophical Studies, 142(1), 5–15.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sosa, E. (2013). Animal versus reflective orders of epistemic competence. In T. Henning & D. Schweikard (Eds.), Knowledge, virtue and action: Putting epistemic virtues to work. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Speaks, J. (2006). Is mental content prior to linguistic meaning? Nous, 40(3), 428–467.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stalnaker, R. (1984). Inquiry. Cambridge: Bradford Books, The MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stich, S. (1993). The fragmentation of reason. Cambridge: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Turri, J. (2010). Epistemic invariantism and speech act contextualism. Philosophical Review, 119(1), 77–95.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Turri, J. (2011). Manifest failure: The gettier problem solved. Philosopher’s Imprint, 11(8), 47.

    Google Scholar 

  • Turri, J. (2012). Is knowledge justified true belief? Synthese, 184(3), 247–259.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Turri, J. (forthcoming). Knowledge as achievement, more or less. In M. A. Fernandez (TBA) (Ed.), The present and future of virtue epistemology.

  • Unger, P. (1967). Experience and factual knowledge. The Journal of Philosophy, 64(5), 152–173.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • White, R. (2005). Epistemic permissiveness. Philosophical Perspectives, 19(1), 445–459.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Whiting, D. (2012). Does belief aim (Only) at the truth? Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 93(2), 279–300.

    Google Scholar 

  • Whiting, D. (2013). The good and the true (or the bad and the false). Philosophy, 88(2), 219–242.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Williamson, T. (2002). Knowledge and its limits. Oxford: OUP.

    Book  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank audiences at Sheffield, Southampton, Trinity College Dublin and Queen’s University Belfast for their feedback on related work. Particularly helpful were questions and comments from George Botterill, Stewart Cohen, Joseph Diekemper, Paul Faulkner, Conor McHugh, Steve Makin, Joe Morrison, Yonatan Shemmer, Jonathan Way, Daniel Whiting, Jeremy Watkins, with apologies to those not named. Benjamin Jarvis would like to thank, further, John Turri, for helpful conversations. J. Adam Carter would like to thank Emma C. Gordon for feedback on an earlier draft.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Eidyn Research Centre, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK

    J. Adam Carter

  2. Stern School of Business, New York University, New York, NY, USA

    Benjamin W. Jarvis

  3. Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY, USA

    Katherine Rubin

Authors
  1. J. Adam Carter
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Benjamin W. Jarvis
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Katherine Rubin
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to J. Adam Carter.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Carter, J.A., Jarvis, B.W. & Rubin, K. Varieties of cognitive achievement. Philos Stud 172, 1603–1623 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-014-0367-z

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-014-0367-z

Keywords

Search

Navigation