Autonomous Knowledge: Radical Enhancement, Autonomy, and the Future of Knowing

✍ Scribed by J. Adam Carter

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Year: 2022
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 174
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

A central conclusion developed and defended throughout the book is that epistemic autonomy is necessary for knowledge (both knowledge-that and knowledge-how) and in ways that epistemologists have not yet fully appreciated. The book is divided into five chapters. Chapter 1 motivates (using a series of twists on Lehrer's TrueTemp case) the claim that propositional knowledge requires autonomous belief. Chapters 2 and 3 flesh out this proposal in two ways, by defending a specific form of history-sensitive externalism with respect to propositional knowledge-apt autonomous belief (Chapter 2) and by showing how the idea that knowledge requires autonomous belief―understood along the externalist lines proposed―corresponds with an entirely new class of knowledge defeaters (Chapter 3). Chapter 4 extends the proposal to (both intellectualist and anti-intellectualist) knowledge-how and performance enhancement, and in a way that combines insights from virtue epistemology with research on
freedom, responsibility, and manipulation. Chapter 5 concludes with a new twist on the Value of Knowledge debate, by vindicating the value of epistemically autonomous knowledge over that which falls short, including (mere) heteronomous but otherwise epistemically impeccable justified true belief.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
Autonomous Knowledge: Radical Enhancement, Autonomy, and the Future of Knowing
Copyright
Dedication
Preface
Contents
1: Radical Enhancement, Knowledge, and Autonomous Belief
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Epistemology and the nature of (upgraded) cognition
1.3 TrueTemp revisited: sci-fi iterations
1.4 The need for an autonomous belief condition
1.5 TrueTemp, redux: an error theory
1.6 Conclusion
Appendix: Knowledge-first?
2: Internalism, Externalism, and Autonomous Belief
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Autonomous belief: some preliminaries
2.3 Epistemic autonomy vs moral-responsibility-relevant attitudinal autonomy
2.4 Internalism
2.5 Epistemic autonomy and externalism
2.5.1 COUNTERFACTUAL EXTERNALISM
2.5.2 HISTORY-SENSITIVE EXTERNALISM
2.6 Caveat: the relationship between (externalist) epistemic autonomy and safety
2.7 Conclusion
3: Epistemic Autonomy and Knowledge Defeat
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Knowledge and defeat
3.3 Epistemic autonomy and defeat
3.3.1 A THOUGHT EXPERIMENT
3.3.2 EPISTEMICALLY HETERONOMOUS DEFEAT
3.4 Objections and replies
3.4.1 THEORY-LADENNESS
3.4.2 AKRATIC PRINCIPLES AND LEVEL-SPLITTING
3.4.3 DEFEAT, KNOWLEDGE, AND IGNORANCE
3.5 Conclusion
Appendix: Redundancy and upgrade
4: Know-How, Performance Enhancement, and Guidance Control
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Anti-intellectualism: a competence model
4.3 An autonomy condition as type-based seat restriction principle?
4.3.1 MOTIVATING AN AUTONOMY CONDITION ON KNOW-HOW
4.3.2 SEAT ACQUISITION RESTRICTION TO THE RESCUE?
4.4 Towards a guidance control theory
4.4.1 RESPONSIBILITY AND ACTION
4.4.2 GUIDANCE CONTROL AS NECESSARY FOR RESPONSIBILITY
4.4.3 REASONS-RESPONSIVENESS
4.4.4 MECHANISM OWNERSHIP
4.4.5 ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM (ACTIVE) MANIFESTATION CONTROL CONDITION (MCC)
4.5 MCC to the rescue I: reasons-responsiveness
4.6 MCC to the rescue II: mechanism ownership
4.7 Putting it all together: manifestation control and stative control
4.8 An infant/child objection and a Pritchard-style refinement
4.9 Conclusion
5: The Value of AutonomousKnowledge
5.1 Introduction
5.2 The value problem
5.3 First pass: a pragmatic vindication
5.4 Second pass: instrumental epistemic value
5.5 Epistemic non-instrumentalism (first pass)
5.6 Epistemic non-instrumentalism: a new solution
5.6.1 VALUE SOURCES: SUPERVENIENCE BASE AND CONSTITUTIVE GROUNDS
5.6.2 ANALOGIES WITH CASE PAIRS
5.6.3 A REVERSAL: FROM BACKWARD TO FORWARD
5.6.4 KORSGAARD ON SELF-CONSTITUTION
5.6.5 EPISTEMIC AUTONOMY AND INTELLECTUAL SELF-CONSTITUTION
5.7 Conclusion
References
Index