Northern Scholars

Speaker: Professor Klemens Kappel (Professor of Philosophy, University of Copenhagen)

Title: Escaping The Akratic Trilemma

Abstract: Recent discussion on the nature of higher order evidence have evolved acound the following:

(E1) S's credence in p should rationally reflect e and only e, where e is S's evidence bearing on the truth of p.

(E2) S's credence in higher order p' (concerning the evidential relations between e and p or S's proper grasp of e) should rationally reflect S's evidence e' (and only e') bearing on the truth of p'.

(E3) It is epistemically p based on e, and a high credence that e does not support p, or that S's processing of e is somehow faulty (The Non-Akrasia Requirement).

(E1), (E2) and (E3) are all prima facie plausible, yet they jointly lead to inconsistencies. This is what might be called The Akratic Trilemma (cf. Sliwa and Horowitz 2015a; Horowitz 2014; Aarnio 2014; Worsnip 2015)). In my contribution, I will assess two recent responses to The Akratic Trilemma.

Titelbaum (2013) argues that when an object level belief is epistemically justified, one cannot have rational justification that this is not the case. This preserves the three lemmas, while denying that they conflict in any possible situation. I will argue that Titelbaum's argument for this position is unsatisfactory, as it essentially asserts (E1) and (E3), and then infer on pain of inconsistency that when S's first order belief that p is warranted by e, then S cannot be warranted in a higher order belief that e is not good evidence for p.

A second response is due to Lasonen-Aarnio (2014) who argues that given that epistemology is rule-governed, one cannot make sense of the idea that higher order evidence defeats first order evidence: there is no coherent way of conceiving of rules governing how to believe on evidence that also allows for higher order evidence to defeat such rules. This supports denying (E3), i.e. and asserting that it may be fully rational in believing that p on some evidence e, while also rationally believing on evidence e' that e is not good evidence for p. I argue that Lasonen-Aarnio's argument fails by providing a way in which epistemology can be rule-governed while accommodating defeat by higher order evidence.

Further information

Northern Scholars public lecture: Professor Klemens Kappel, "Freedom of Expression, Diversity and Truth"

Contact

Jesper Kallestrup