Epistemic akrasia

No apology required

Bibliographic Data

ID21364039
AuthorsDavid Christensen (0000-0001-5255-0029, Brown University, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume58
Issue1
Pages54-76
Publication date2024-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueNoûs (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0029-4624 • E-ISSN: 1468-0068
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/nous.12441
OpenAlexW4311308529
LanguageEN
Citations received8
References cited49

Epistemic Akrasia: No Apology Required 1 Self-Aware Believers and AkrasiaWe think about the world; and we ourselves are parts of the world we think about.In some ways, our thinking about ourselves is much like our thinking about other people, or non-human animals, or inanimate things.I have beliefs about my age, the age of my partner, the age of my son's dog, and the age of my house.And when an epistemologist theorizes about what makes these various beliefs rational or irrational, it does not seem that the belief about my own age is peculiar, or that it plays any particularly interesting role.But sometimes, self-awareness is more epistemologically interesting.One way this can happen is when an agent is able to reflect normatively on her own epistemic situation.Suppose that Anya, a medical resident, has views not only about, for example, whether dosage D of a drug is the appropriate dosage for her patient, but also about whether high confidence that dosage D is appropriate is rational in her situation. 2 Once she can do this, it raises questions for the epistemologist about the relationship between two things: (A) what the agent is rational to believe about the world in general; and (B) what the agent is rational to believe about what she's rational to believe.It's natural to think that rationality requires that these two things cohere in a particular way: for example, it's natural to think that it can't be rational for Anya to be highly confident that dosage D is the appropriate dosage, while also being highly confident that it's not rational for her to be highly confident that D is appropriate.An agent who has such beliefs can be thought of as exhibiting epistemic akrasia, and epistemic akrasia is often taken to be irrational-even paradigmatically irrational. 3 In many cases, akratic beliefs do seem clearly irrational.For example, suppose we fill in the case in one natural way: Suppose that Anya's belief about dosage D is the product of moderately complex figuring.And suppose that she is told that she's been awake for 30 hours, and she knows she has a long history of miscalculating dosages when fatigued.This makes it rational for her to doubt the rationality of her high confidence that D is appropriate for her current patient.But it also seems that Anya should lose confidence in the appropriateness of dosage D (and this seems true, even if the information on her patient's chart actually does support D as the appropriate dosage).Let us suppose

Epistemology · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Philosophy · Philosophy and Theoretical Science

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