Metaepistemology

Metaepistemology is the branch of epistemology and metaphilosophy that studies the underlying assumptions made in debates in epistemology, including those concerning the existence and authority of epistemic facts and reasons, the nature and aim of epistemology, and the methodology of epistemology.^[1]

Perspectives in methodological debates include traditional epistemology which argues for the use of intuitions and for the autonomy of epistemology from science, experimental philosophy which argues against intuitions and for the use of empirical studies in epistemology, pragmatism which argues for the reconstruction of epistemic concepts to achieve practical goals, naturalism which argues that epistemology should be empirical and scientifically-informed, and feminism which criticises androcentric bias in epistemology and argues for the use of feminist method.

According to philosopher Dominique Kuenzle, metaepistemology was coined by Roderick Firth in a 1959 article discussing the views of Roderick Chisholm on the ethics of belief.^[2] Richard Brandt used the term in the 1967 edition of the Encyclopedia of Philosophy, defining it as a higher-order discipline, analogous to metaethics, that attempts to explain epistemic concepts and to understand the underlying logic of epistemic statements.^[3] In 1978, also inspired by the work of Roderick Chisholm, William Alston released "Meta-Ethics and Meta-Epistemology", the first paper with the explicit aim of defining the distinction between metaepistemology and "substantive epistemology", in which he defined metaepistemology as the study of "the conceptual and methodological foundations of [epistemology]."^[4] Whilst subsequent theorists using the term have agreed on the need for a distinction between metaepistemology and other areas of epistemology, there are substantial disagreements about how and where to draw the lines.^[5]

Some sources define metaepistemology narrowly as the epistemology of epistemology,^[6] including The Blackwell Dictionary of Western Philosophy which states that the role of metaepistemology is in comparing different epistemologies and analyzing epistemic concepts.^[7] Others emphasise the role of metaepistemology in examining epistemology's goals, methods and criteria of adequacy.^[8] Metaepistemology is also sometimes characterised as the study of epistemic statements and judgements, including their semantic, ontological and pragmatic status,^[6] or as the study of epistemic facts and reasons.^[9] Metaepistemology has been described as a reflective or higher-order discipline by a number of sources, including the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy and The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, which calls metaepistemology a branch of metaphilosophy.^[10] The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy also emphasises that metaepistemology is concerned with the fundamental assumptions of epistemology.^[11] Similarly, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy states that metaepistemology "takes a step back from particular substantive debates in epistemology in order to inquire into the assumptions and commitments made by those who engage in these debates."^[1]

The division between metaepistemology and the other branches of epistemology—as well as their connections with one another—are debated by metaepistemologists.^[12] Some theorists, such as William Alston, characterise metaepistemology as dealing with the analysis of epistemic concepts such as knowledge.^[7] Others, such as Dominique Kuenzle and Christos Kyriacou, argue that the analysis of knowledge is a paradigmatic example of a standard first-order epistemological question, not a metaepistemological one.^[13] Theorists also differ on whether the debate between internalism and externalism is epistemological or metaepistemological.^[14]

As well as the question of where the dividing line between metaepistemology and the rest of epistemology should be placed, there are also differing views about what branches to divide epistemology into. The Blackwell Dictionary of Western Philosophy contrasts metaepistemology with "substantive epistemology" whereas the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy states that epistemology can be divided into three branches analogously to the three branches of ethics: metaepistemology, normative epistemology and applied epistemology.^[15] Richard Fumerton views the idea of a branch of normative epistemology as problematic because he views epistemic normativity as inherently different in character to moral normativity; he instead divides epistemology into metaepistemology and applied epistemology.^[16]

Views about the relationship between metaepistemology and the other branches of epistemology fall into two groups: autonomy and interdependency. According to the autonomy view, metaepistemology is an entirely independent branch of epistemology that neither depends on the other branches nor entails any particular position in them. For example, according to this view, a person being an epistemic realist, anti-realist, or relativist has no implications for whether they should be a coherentist, foundationalist, or reliabilist, and vice versa. According to the interdependency view, on the other hand, there are strong theoretical interdependencies between the branches and a normative epistemological view may even be fully derivable from a metaepistemological one.^[17]

One methodological debate concerns the use of intuitions in epistemology. Traditionally, intuitive judgements about particular cases or thought experiments are used to support epistemological theories or ideas.^[18] A prominent example in epistemology is the use of intuitions regarding Gettier cases to test theories of knowledge.^[19] Intuitions are also used in the process of reflective equilibrium, in which conflicting intuitions are brought into alignment by modifying or removing intuitions until they form a coherent system of beliefs.^[20]

A less traditional type of evidence in epistemology, advocated by experimental philosophy, is the use of experimental methods and empirical data. Some proponents of experimental philosophy have derided traditional methods in epistemology as "armchair philosophy" and have attempted to undermine epistemologists' intuitions with experimental results. For example, some studies have indicated that intuitive judgements are unstable and sensitive to philosophically irrelevant factors such as question order and cultural background.^[21] Other experimental philosophers accept intuitions as a source of justification but argue that philosophers' intuitions do not represent the intuitions of the general population or "folk". Traditional epistemologists such as Ernest Sosa and Timothy Williamson have responded by arguing that expert intuitions are more reliable than folk intuitions.^[22]

Related to the use of intuitions in epistemology is the analysis of epistemic terms. For example, epistemologists have sought an analysis of knowledge by attempting to find the scenarios in which a subject knows a particular proposition.^[23] An issue in metaepistemology concerns the proper role of analysis within the methodology of epistemology.^[24] Traditionally, analysis in epistemology has been seen as conceptual analysis, which attempts to clarify concepts such as knowledge by providing necessary and sufficient conditions for their use.^[23] However, due to the issues raised by Gettier cases, some philosophers such as Williamson have become pessimistic about the possibility of conceptual analysis in epistemology. Williamson instead proposes a knowledge-first approach in which knowledge is taken to be fundamental.^[25]

An approach similar to conceptual analysis views analysis as semantic or linguistic analysis, in which the way terms are actually used is tracked to try and reveal their meaning.^[26] However, Williamson has questioned whether epistemologists should be viewed as investigating words or concepts, rather than the phenomenon of knowledge itself.^[24] Epistemological naturalists have likewise argued that epistemology should not be concerned with the concept of knowledge because, as Hilary Kornblith puts it, "the subject matter of epistemology is knowledge itself, not our concept of knowledge".^[27] According to this approach, analysis in epistemology is viewed as metaphysical analysis, in which the aim is to understand the nature of the thing being investigated.^[24]

An alternative methodology to philosophical analysis is explication. Explication aims to clarify a term by replacing it with a more precisely defined technical term. The technical term should remain close in meaning to the original term but can deviate from intuitions to fulfil theoretical or practical goals.^[28] Practical explication, also known as a function-first approach, identifies the purpose or function of a term to clarify its meaning. Proposed functions of the term knowledge, for example, include its role in identifying reliable sources of information and in marking an end-point for inquiry.^[29] This approach is associated with the pragmatism of Charles Sanders Peirce and neopragmatists such as Mark Kaplan and Edward Craig.^[30] Inspired by Craig, Jonathan Weinberg has proposed an explicit metaepistemology underlying this approach, resulting in a method of "analysis-by-imagined-reconstruction".^[31]

Two connected issues in epistemology are the questions of what particular cases count as knowledge, and what criteria or principles determine what counts as knowledge. Epistemologists have argued over which of these two projects should be given priority in epistemological methodology. According to particularists, particular cases of knowledge need to be identified before the general principles underlying knowledge can be understood. Methodists, on the other hand, argue that the principles underlying knowledge are required to reliably identify cases.^[32]

A number of modern philosophers, such as Descartes, Locke and Hume, took a methodist approach to this question. However, the dominant approach in the second half of the 20th century was particularism, fuelled in part by the perceived failures of earlier methodist accounts. Other points in favour of particularism include the idea that philosophers are linguistically competent so should have reliable intuitions about correct and incorrect uses of the term knowledge, and that providing a principle for identifying knowledge is arbitrary without testing it against particular cases. This accusation of arbitrariness can be avoided by methodists if they provide a justification for their starting principle that does not depend on particular cases. Another important argument in favour of methodism is that particularism begs the question against scepticism by assuming that there are cases of knowledge.^[32]

By the 21st century, after a period driven by responses to Gettier cases, particularism became less dominant due to worries that relying on cases was resulting in inelegant theories of knowledge that did not provide philosophical insight (even if they correctly categorised cases). As a result, methodology in epistemology widened to include considerations regarding the value of knowledge and the relationships between knowledge and related concepts such as assertion.^[33]

Feminist philosophy has extended various of these criticisms of traditional epistemology from a feminist perspective and advocated for feminist methods in epistemology. For example, Sally Haslanger has argued from a pragmatist feminist perspective that androcentric bias is widespread within epistemic practice and concepts and as such the use that they provide for us should be re-evaluated so that they can be reformed to better serve their purposes within epistemology. Louise Antony and Elizabeth Anderson have embraced feminist forms of naturalist methodology which maintain naturalism's dedication to an empirical approach whilst making a space for normative feminist ideals such as eliminating androcentric bias. Antony argues that the "bias of paradox"—the tension between feminism's criticism of the bias in androcentric perspectives on the one hand and the feminist idea that all methods, including feminist methods, must be biased by their values and interests on the other—can be resolved by naturalism. She argues that feminists should not attempt to argue from a neutral perspective but should show through empirical work that feminist values and approaches are better at producing true theories than androcentric ones.^[34][35]

This section needs expansion with: more information from Kyriacou n.d., Kyriacou & McKenna 2018 and McHugh, Way & Whiting 2018. You can help by adding to it. (June 2021)

Epistemic language often includes sentences with a normative appearance; for example "you should believe in the evidence" or "it is good to be an open-minded researcher". This normative appearance of epistemic language gives rise to many metanormative questions such as whether epistemic semantics is truly normative, whether or not there are objective epistemic facts about what we ought to believe, how we could ever gain knowledge of such facts as well as whether or not they could fit into a naturalistic philosophy, and the relationship between epistemology and ethics as normative disciplines.^[36]

As in meta-ethics, views about the semantics of epistemology can be divided into cognitivism and non-cognitivism. Epistemic cognitivism holds that epistemic judgements such as "you should believe in the evidence" express beliefs about facts about the world and so characteristically aim at the truth. Epistemic non-cognitivism, on the other hand, holds that such judgements do not express beliefs, instead expressing the desires or attitudes of the speaker, and so are not truth-apt.^[37]

Likewise, views about the metaphysics of epistemology can be divided into epistemic realism and anti-realism. Epistemic realism is the view that mind-independent epistemic facts, reasons and properties exist. Epistemic realism generally also holds that epistemic facts provide categorical reasons for belief (i.e. reasons that apply to agents regardless of their desires or goals). Epistemic anti-realism denies the existence of such epistemic facts, reasons and properties, instead characterising them as mind-dependent, and argues that mind-dependent facts provide us with only with instrumental reasons (i.e. reasons that only apply to agents depending on their desires and goals). Anti-realist theories are generally thought to fit well with naturalist philosophy because they ground normative epistemic facts in descriptive natural facts such as facts about human psychology.^[38] A view which seeks to find a middle ground between realism and anti-realism is constructivism (also known as constitutivism) which argues that normative truths are constructed by agents such that epistemic facts are grounded by or constitutive of facts about agents (such as facts about their desires or about the pre-conditions of their agency).^[39]

There are broadly two positions about the relationship between metaepistemology and metaethics: the parity thesis and the disparity thesis. The parity thesis holds that because metaethics and metaepistemology have important structural similarities to one another, their answers to metanormative questions such as whether there are any normative facts will be the same. For example, according to the parity thesis, if epistemic realism is true, then moral realism must also be true. The parity thesis has been used in "companions-in-guilt" arguments which aim to extend arguments for or against realism in metaepistemology to metaethics, and vice versa. For example, Terence Cuneo has argued that denying the existence of epistemic facts is self-defeating because it requires arguing that we should believe that there are no facts about what we should believe. According to this argument, there must be epistemic facts and, given the parity premise, also moral facts. Similarly utilising the parity premise, Sharon Street, Allan Gibbard and Matthew Chrisman have argued that reasons for being moral anti-realists extend to epistemic anti-realism. In contrast to the parity thesis, the disparity thesis holds that there is some important disparity between metaethics and metaepistemology which means that their answers to metanormative questions could be very different from one another. For example, Chris Heathwood argues that moral facts are irreducibly normative whilst epistemic facts are reducible to descriptive facts such as facts about evidence and probability. As a result, he thinks that we have reason to be moral realists but not necessarily epistemic realists.^[40][41]

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• Metaepistemology at PhilPapers
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• Ranalli, Chris (27 April 2017). "Meta-epistemological Skepticism". Oxford Bibliographies Online. doi:10.1093/OBO/9780195396577-0342.