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What’s the Point of Knowledge?

What’s the Point of Knowledge?

A Function-​First Epistemology

Michael Hannon

1

1 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries.

Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America. © Oxford University Press 2019 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above.

You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Hannon, Michael (Michael J.), author.

Title: What’s the point of knowledge? : a function-first epistemology / Michael Hannon.

Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018032483 (print) | LCCN 2018051505 (ebook) | ISBN 9780190914752 (online content) | ISBN 9780190914738 (updf) | ISBN 9780190914745 (epub) | ISBN 9780190914721 (cloth : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Knowledge, Theory of.

Classification: LCC BD161 (ebook) | LCC BD161 .H36 2019 (print) | DDC 121—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018032483 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America

PREFACE

W

hy do humans use words like “knowing,” “understanding,” and “rational”? Put more broadly, what is the point of epistemic evaluation? This book attempts to answer this question.

I began working on this topic in 2009 at the University of Cambridge, where my doctoral thesis explored the ways in which speaking of “knowing” facilitates human cooperation, survival, and flourishing.

Drawing on the work of Edward Craig, I hypothesized that humans think and talk about knowledge primarily to identify reliable sources of information to members of their community. I claimed (and still claim) that identifying reliable informants is essential for pooling, sharing, and retrieving useful information. This idea might appear simple, but I believe it has wide-​reaching implications. In subsequent years, I have continued investigating the nature, purpose, and value of knowledge, building on my previous work while pushing deeper to extend it in new directions. The result is this book.

In a book about our epistemic dependence on others, I must thank the many people to whom I am indebted for their comments, criticisms, and encouragement while working on this project. Two of the most influential people are Hallvard Lillehammer (my PhD supervisor) and Stephen Grimm (my postdoc supervisor). Together their incisive comments have shaped many ideas in this book. I cannot imagine a better pair of mentors and I owe each of them an immeasurable debt. I am also grateful to Krista Lawlor for agreeing—​on very short notice—​to supervise part of this proj­ ect while I was a visiting postdoc at Stanford University in the spring of 2017.

Others who deserve thanks are Byron Alvares, Manuel Alves, Nathan Ballantyne, James Beebe, Jessica Brown, Chris Cowie, Edward Craig, Tim Crane, Keith DeRose, Sinan Dogramaci, Kate Elgin, Sam Elgin, Georgi Gardiner, Mikkel Gerken, John Greco, David Henderson, Nick Hughes, Mark Kaplan, Klemens Kappel, Chris Kelp, Martin Kusch, Jess Kwong, Tania Lombrozo, Helen Marsh, Robin McKenna, Joshua Mozersky, Gareth Nellis, Corey Nishio, Huw Price, Duncan Pritchard, Kevin Roberts, Patrick Rysiew, Anand Shan, Barry Smith, Ernest Sosa, and Nick Treanor.

I am especially thankful to Kate Elgin and Robin McKenna for reading and providing comments on a full draft of this manuscript. My family, too, is owed more than deep thanks. Their influence on my work is less obvious but no less real.

I also want to apologize to anyone I forgot to mention by name and say thank you for your help. This book is the result of many years of thinking about the social role of knowledge, and I am sure I have learned things from more people than I can now remember.

Audiences at the following events have also provided helpful feedback at various stages of writing: the Bled Epistemology Conference (2017), Queen’s University Colloquium Series (2017), University of Vienna (2017), Varieties of Understanding Seminar (2016), Concepts and Cognition Lab at UC Berkeley (2016), APA Pacific Division Meeting (2015), Buffalo Experimental Philosophy Conference (2015), Helsinki Epistemology Workshop (2015), Central States Philosophical Association (2015), APA Eastern Division Meeting (2014), NYC Philosophy of Language Workshop (2013), Midsummer Philosophy Workshop (2013), European Epistemology Network Meeting (2012), and the Cambridge Faculty of Philosophy (2010–​2013).

I have drawn, with kind permission, on previously published work.

Parts of c­ hapter 2 are taken from “The Practical Origins of Epistemic Contextualism,” Erkenntnis (2014) 78 (4): 899–​919. Chapter 3 draws on my paper “Fallibilism and the Value of Knowledge,” Synthese (2014) 191 (6): 1119–​1146. Chapter 4 is based on “A Solution to Knowledge’s Threshold Problem,” Philosophical Studies (2017) 174 (3): 607–​629. Parts of ­chapter 5 are taken from “The Importance of Knowledge Ascriptions,” Philosophy Compass (2015) 10 (12): 856–​866. Chapter 6 is a substantially revised and expanded version of “The Universal Core of Knowledge,” Synthese (2015) 192 (3): 769–​786. I want to thank the relevant editors and publishers for letting me use this material.

I am also grateful to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for providing me with a doctoral fellowship that

viii

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Preface

enabled me to study at the University of Cambridge, where the ideas for this book first took shape. I am also thankful to King’s College and the Faculty of Philosophy in Cambridge for supporting my research. My former colleagues at Queen’s University, especially Josh Mozersky, also deserve thanks for providing me with a fellowship that allowed me to bring this book much closer to completion. I would also like to thank Barry Smith and the Institute of Philosophy for giving me the support needed to finish this project, as well as Lucy Randall at Oxford University Press and two anonymous reviewers for all their helpful feedback.

While I am thankful to many people, I could not have written this book without the love, support, and encouragement of Elizabeth Edenberg.

Thank you for your relentless optimism, your generosity of spirit, and for editing and improving everything I write.

Preface

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ix

Introduction

This book is about knowledge and its value. My aim is to reveal the nature, purpose, and significance of knowledge by investigating why humans think and speak of knowing.

The word “know” is remarkable for a number of reasons. It is one of the 10 most commonly used verbs in English, outpaced only by utterly basic verbs like “be,” “have,” “do,” “go,” and “say.” It is also the first cognitive verb that children learn and the most frequently used term in epistemic appraisal.1 For example, it is far more common for us to speak of “knowl­edge” than it is for us to speak of “reliability,” “justification,” “understanding,” “wisdom,” and an array of other epistemological notions.

Perhaps most strikingly, the word “know” seems to find a comfortable meaning-​equivalent in every human language. This is especially noteworthy because empirical evidence from cross-​linguistic semantics indicates that almost every word in the English lexicon does not have an equivalent in many, perhaps most, other languages. Even words that refer to common emotional states like “sad” and “angry,” as well as words for seemingly universal mental states and processes like “believe” and “remember,” are language and culture specific. In contrast, linguists have isolated “know” as one of a very small number of words that are allegedly culturally universal.2 This all suggests that knowledge is deeply important to human life.

1 2

See Davies and Gardner (2010), Shatz, Wellman, and Silber (1983), and Gerken (2015).

See Goddard (2010). More precisely, the sense of “know” that embeds a propositional or wh-​ complement is arguably universal. Not every language follows English by making “know” perform multiple tasks; for example, the French have “savoir”/​“connaitre” and Germans have “wissen”/​“kennen.”

What’s the Point of Knowledge? A Function-First Epistemology. Michael Hannon, Oxford University Press (2019). © Michael Hannon. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190914721.003.0001

This book aims to shed light on the nature and importance of knowl­ edge by investigating what our epistemic words, concepts, norms, and practices are for. I call this methodological approach function-​first epistemology.

Although the name is new, the methodology is not. Edward Craig took this approach in his insightful and (until recently) underappreciated book Knowledge and the State of Nature. In that work, Craig argues that our practice of attributing knowledge plays a vital role in human cooperation. More specifically, he says we speak of “knowing” in order to recommend good sources of information to members of our community. This practice is necessary, or at least deeply important, because humans are information-​dependent creatures that often rely on the testimony of others.

I find this idea highly plausible and I will attempt to show that we can derive substantial epistemological payoffs by adopting it. By reflecting on the purpose of epistemic evaluation, we can make headway on topics such as the nature and value of knowledge, the intractability of skepticism, the relationship between knowledge and practical reasoning, the Gettier problem, as well as the nature and value of human understanding.

The extent of my theoretical debt to Craig is sometimes embarrassing, but my focus in this book is not on exegesis. The philosophical approach articulated and defended here is distinct from Craig’s proposal in a number of ways. For example, Craig’s inquiry is directed exclusively at explicating the concept of knowledge, whereas function-​first epistemology is a method of inquiry directed at epistemic evaluation more broadly. Further, Craig provides a genealogical story that traces the development of the concept of knowledge from the more primitive concept of a good informant, which in turn arose in a “state of nature.” In contrast, function-​first epistemology is not a genealogy and makes no reference to a fictional state of nature. I’ll say more about this in ­chapter 2.

These are just two of many ways in which I modify Craig’s initial proposal. I will also respond to unanswered criticisms, fill gaps he left open, and extend this approach to areas of the epistemological landscape left untouched by his work. Chapter 9, for example, explores the nature, purpose, and value of human understanding. One of my central claims will be that understanding and knowledge play different social roles. By examining these two cognitive achievements from the point of view of their function, we can throw much light on epistemic value—​the kind of value that attaches to cognitive successes. I will argue that, contrary to popular belief, knowledge plays a more important role than understanding in human life.

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What’s the Point of Knowledge?

Within the past decade or so, a number of scholars have started thinking and writing about the function of epistemic evaluation.3 This has made it an exciting and rewarding time to work on this otherwise neglected topic.

But despite the surge of interest in the function of epistemic evaluation, this approach has faced two major obstacles. First, epistemologists have tended to adopt Craig’s general framework without defending this methodology. They merely assume this approach is a viable starting point for further theorizing, but this very starting point is controversial. One of my goals is to make function-​first epistemology more palatable by answering a wide range of objections that have accumulated in recent years. Second, people often find it unclear what this method really amounts to. I have met many scholars who warmly approve of this research program while also admitting they don’t quite know what it is. They ask questions like: What does it mean to say knowledge has a “function”? Doesn’t it have a variety of functions? How are they related?

One of the goals of this book is to answer these sorts of questions and, in doing so, to put function-​first epistemology on a sounder methodological basis. I also hope to show that we can answer many interesting and difficult questions in epistemology by reflecting on the purpose of epistemic evaluation.

At the core of this book are two broad proposals. First, I suggest that we can make progress in epistemology by taking a function-​first approach.

Second, I hypothesize that the function of the concept of knowledge is to identify reliable informants—​a practice that is vital for human survival, cooperation, and flourishing. These two proposals are not inseparable. You might endorse the method of function-​first epistemology while rejecting my hypothesis about the function of the concept of knowledge; or you might reject my methodological approach and yet think there is an important conceptual connection between knowing and being a reliable informant. Nevertheless, I will defend both proposals. I want to emphasize, however, that the usefulness of function-​first epistemology would not be undermined if it turned out that my particular hypothesis about the concept of knowledge were mistaken. I hope to demonstrate the power of this methodology without necessarily relying on my hypothesis about our need to identify reliable informants. Indeed, some chapters in this book are

3

See Williams (2002), Neta (2006), Weinberg (2006), Fricker (2008), Greco (2008), Henderson (2009), Gelfert (2011), Kelp (2011), Pritchard (2012), Dogramaci (2012), McKenna (2013), Lawlor (2013), Hannon (2013, 2017a), Greco and Hedden (2016), and the contributions in Greco and Henderson (2015).

Introduction

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3

mainly concerned with the general method but not the specific hypothesis (such as the chapter on epistemic diversity).

This book provides a deeply social picture of knowledge, one that places our reliance on others at center stage. The details of this idea will be filled out as we proceed. For now, I’ll simply emphasize that a very small part of our knowledge of the world comes to us from our immediate experience.

In vast areas of life we depend on what others tell us, and this dependence is not restricted to what we are told in face-​to-​face interactions. As Richard Moran observes, “we also take ourselves to know all sorts of things that only reached us through a long chain of utterances and documents, whose evidential status we have never investigated for ourselves and will never be in a position to investigate” (2005: 1). Testimony, or secondhand information, is a basic way in which knowledge gets around. If the only information available to us came directly, our stock of knowledge would be significantly impoverished. This goes against the tradition of “epistemic individualism” in epistemology according to which the legitimate springs of knowledge are located in firsthand experience. It is clear, however, that we cannot get by without relying on other people.

Recent work in evolutionary theory supports this idea. In The Evolved Apprentice, Kim Sterelny emphasizes our reliance on others to learn valuable skills for survival. One of the most distinctive features of human life, he claims, “is our dependence on intricate networks of cooperation and the division of labor” (Sterelny 2012: 101). He goes on to say that “No living humans gather the resources needed for a successful life by their own efforts.” In other words, we are not isolated inquirers: our cognitive competence is a collective achievement that depends on many ordinary individuals who gather and share the informational resources on which human life depends. Further, this type of cooperation and information exchange is what ushered along our sharp divergence from our great-​ape relatives—​it is what led to our distinctive intelligence and cognitive power.

I will not attempt to integrate my account of knowledge with empirical theories of how human cognitive behavior evolved, but this book can be seen as providing a framework for bringing evolutionary considerations to bear on our understanding of the social role of knowledge.

This book has nine chapters. I myself don’t enjoy reading (or writing) chapter summaries, but so few people agree with me about this that I have decided to provide the reader with a road map.

Chapter 1, “Methodologies in Epistemology,” outlines the method of function-​first epistemology and highlights some of its benefits. This methodology involves three broad steps: we start with a prima facie

4

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What’s the Point of Knowledge?

plausible hypothesis about the role of some epistemic concept (norm, practice) in human life; then we try to determine what a concept (norm, practice) having this role must be like; finally, we examine the extent to which the concept (norm, practice) we have described matches our everyday judgments. In order to highlight what is distinctive and fruitful about function-​first epistemology, I also compare it with four alternative approaches: reductive conceptual analysis, knowledge-​first epistemology, reverse engineering of epistemic evaluations, and epistemological naturalism. I argue that each of these methods faces limitations that my approach does not. For example, I argue that certain methodologies rely too heavily on linguistic usage or intuitive judgments about cases; as a result, they only end up describing our actual practices and not characterizing those that would be best for us. In contrast, my view leaves space for the normative project of evaluating how well or poorly our epistemic concepts, norms, and practices actually satisfy our needs and goals. I also argue that knowledge is a socially constructed kind—​it is not something we discover in the natural world but rather something we impose upon it. I then explore the ramifications of this proposal for how we ought to investigate knowledge and knowledge-​ claims. This metaepistemological groundwork provides the basis for the rest of the book, which uses the function-​first method to answer some of the most challenging questions in epistemology.

Chapter 2, “The Point of Knowledge,” provides a preliminary statement and defense of this book’s central hypothesis, namely: the purpose of the concept of knowledge is to identify reliable informants. I use this hypoth­ esis to yield a systematic account of knowledge and knowledge claims.

There are two key players in my story. The first is “the inquirer” who is trying to find accurate information; the second is “the reliable informant” who provides the information the inquirer seeks. We start with the idea of an individual inquirer who needs an informant to satisfy a need for information; then we imagine a more complex situation in which a community of individuals collaborate to pool and share information. As our interest in information becomes more socially directed, it becomes vital that we identify individuals who are sufficiently reliable for members of our community. This results in an “objectivized” standard for knowledge. According to this idea, a “knower” is someone reliable enough for the community at large. After outlining this thought, I try to defend it from objections. For example, what should we say about people who seem not to qualify as reliable informants and yet clearly have knowledge? Also, does the notion of “objectivized” knowledge lead to skepticism? And doesn’t all this rely

Introduction

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5

on dubious quasi-​historical postulations? This chapter provides answers to these (and other) questions.

Chapter 3, “The Value of Fallible Knowledge,” attempts to solve a problem that vexes all fallibilist theories of knowledge, which I call the “threshold problem.” This is the problem of how to provide a plausible account of what fixes the threshold (level, degree) of justification (evidence, probability, warrant, supporting ground) for knowledge in a nonarbitrary way—​and in a way that also makes sense of the perceived value of knowl­ edge. Although it is widely accepted that knowledge does not demand infallibility, epistemologists have been largely silent about how strong the justificatory component of knowledge must be. As Laurence BonJour writes, “it is fair to say that nothing like a precise specification of this [level of justification] has ever been seriously suggested, let alone more widely endorsed” (2010: 61). This chapter attempts to answer this challenge. By appealing to the hypothesis that the concept of knowledge is used to flag reliable informants, I argue that we can reasonably determine the level of justification required for fallible knowledge; further, we may explain why this level of justification has the significance that makes knowledge valuable. I also explore the alleged payoffs of rejecting fallibilism and I argue these benefits are illusory.

Chapter 4, “Impure Knowledge,” defends a view that I call “communal impurism.” Purism is the view that whether or not a true belief amounts to knowledge depends exclusively on epistemic factors—​for example, on whether the true belief was formed in a reliable way or was supported by good evidence. Impurists deny this. My goal in this chapter is to defend a new version of impurism that is based on our communal need to identify reliable informants. To do this, I must reconcile two seemingly conflicting ideas. On the one hand, I claim that knowers must be sufficiently reliable to serve as actionable sources of information for members of their community (i.e., they must meet a communal threshold for knowledge).

On the other hand, impurists claim the level of justification required for knowledge is partly fixed by an individual’s practical reasoning situation (i.e., it becomes more difficult to know as the stakes go up for the putative knower). We thus face a puzzle: it seems that a knower must meet a communal standard for knowledge and yet the threshold for knowledge is partly determined by an individual’s practical reasoning situation. But how can there be both a general (communal) standard for knowledge and a fluctuating standard that is partly determined by individual practical interests? I reconcile these ideas by arguing for the following view: there is a communal standard for knowledge that is needed to promote a deep kind

6

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What’s the Point of Knowledge?

of coordination in our epistemic practices, and yet an individual’s stakes may trump the communal standard when it is not sufficiently demanding for the relevant practical reasoning situation. In this way, the concept of knowledge continues to serve the practical function of identifying sufficiently reliable informants.

Chapter 5, “Pluralism about Knowledge,” tackles one of the most common objections to my view, namely: why think the concept of knowl­ edge has just one purpose? There seem to be many uses of this concept and there is no a priori reason to favor one use over any others. Indeed, there have been a variety of proposals about what role our knowledge concept plays in epistemic evaluation; for example, it has been suggested that we think and speak of knowing in order to signal the appropriate end of inquiry; to track the epistemic norm governing warranted assertion and practical reasoning; to distinguish between blameworthy and blameless behavior; to provide assurance to others; to encourage good testimony; and so forth. This plurality of views should make us wonder whether the concept of knowledge has just one function. And even if we suppose it does have a single function, how do we decide between these various proposals? In this chapter, I try to ascertain what the concept of knowledge must be like to accommodate all these plausible functions. I defend a version of “epistemic pluralism” that countenances the idea that we speak of knowing for a variety of purposes, but I also claim the primary purpose of the concept of knowledge is to identify reliable informants.

Chapter 6, “Epistemic Diversity,” provides a new argument against epistemic relativism. Traditionally, epistemological investigation has aspired to general conclusions, not culturally local ones. As Rebecca Kukla observes, epistemologists customarily take questions about the nature of knowledge, justification, fallibility, and the like to be questions about “universal principles and concepts unmarked by any particular demographic or geographic limitations” (2015: 202). For example, skepticism is supposed to be worrying and interesting because it purports to show that there is no human knowledge, or almost none. According to the epistemic relativist, however, the cognitive norms that determine what counts as knowledge (or whether a belief is rational, justified, etc.) vary with, and are dependent on, local conceptual or cultural frameworks. In recent years, a group of experimental philosophers have claimed to provide empirical evidence for this sort of epistemic diversity. In this chapter, I argue the data actually supports the existence of a universal folk epistemology. I further support this idea by providing a theoretical argument for why language users living in social communities would develop a cross-​culturally (and cross-​linguistically)

Introduction

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7

shared concept of knowledge. More specifically, I argue that all humans have certain basic practical needs that the concept of knowledge is used to satisfy and we could not meet these needs without a word that is (near-​) synonymous with “know.” Thus, we should expect every culture to have a word to express the concept of knowledge. Function-​first epistemology is thereby exonerated from the charge of relativism.

Chapter 7, “Epistemic Pragmatism,” centers on a hotly debated question in epistemology: what is the correct semantic account of “knows”?

Scholars have recently appealed to putative facts about the purpose of knowledge ascriptions to adjudicate this dispute. I am generally sympathetic with the idea that new epistemological insights can be gained by thinking about the purpose of having a concept of knowledge, but I raise doubts about the viability of appealing to facts about the purpose of the concept of knowledge to determine the correct semantic theory of “knows.”

In fact, I argue this entire debate about the semantics of “knows” rests on an error: it presupposes that we should account for the meaning of epistemic claims by determining their truth conditions. A more natural way to approach the meaning of epistemic claims, I argue, is to ask what practical functions they serve us in communicating with each other. Drawing on the work of J. L. Austin, I articulate a view called “epistemic pragmatism.” This view questions the pervasive presupposition that the best way to account for the meaning of epistemic claims is to look for referents or truth conditions. Instead, we should look for the social or practical roles of words and concepts in order to understand their meaning. If this proposal is correct, it will undercut a variety of popular theories and could potentially reorient contemporary debates about the semantics of knowledge ascriptions.

Chapter 8, “Skepticism and the Point of Knowledge,” explores the relationship between philosophical skepticism and the concerns of daily life.

By reflecting on the clash between our everyday outlook and the attitude to which we are led by philosophical reflection, I hope to show that function-​ first epistemology can augment an argument against skepticism. I explain the force of the skeptic’s argument as well as our desire to reject the skeptical conclusion in the following way: our need to share information pushes us to accept stricter epistemic standards that might logically end at skepticism, but practical factors encourage us to formulate standards that stop short of skepticism. This tension creates an area of indeterminacy in which controversies about skepticism take place. However, I do not attempt to resolve the clash between skepticism and our everyday outlook by appealing to one perspective against the other. My theory of knowledge

8

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What’s the Point of Knowledge?

explains how (and to what extent) knowledge is possible, but without assuming there is something drastically mistaken with the skeptical challenge. This diagnosis leaves room for the idea that there may be contexts in which it is appropriate to make skeptical challenges. Some fallibilists may begrudge the skeptic even this limited and temporary victory, but I am not one of them. I believe we can explain the persuasive power of skepticism while also explaining why skeptical worries do not (and should not) threaten our everyday knowledge.

Chapter 9, “What’s the Point of Understanding?,” extends the function-​ first approach to human understanding. I argue that the concept of understanding serves the practical function of identifying good explainers, which is an important dimension of epistemic evaluation. This hypothesis throws light on a variety of issues, including the role of explanation in understanding, the relationship between understanding and knowledge, epistemic luck, and the value of understanding. I also argue that understanding and knowledge play different social roles: roughly, knowledge is closely tied to answering our need for true beliefs, whereas understanding answers our need for good explanations. Everyday inquiry is typically aimed at true beliefs, which is why knowledge matters, but sometimes we need more than just true beliefs to get by in the world.

This book is written in the belief that new epistemological insights can be gained by thinking about the point of having epistemic concepts like knowledge and understanding. I aim to show that some major issues in epistemology can be resolved by taking a function-​first approach, thereby illustrating the significant role that this method can play in contemporary philosophical debates.

What’s more, the “function-​first” approach can be applied to areas beyond epistemology. There are many objects of philosophical inquiry that may, like knowledge, serve some important function or role in human life, and the kind of theoretical investigation practiced here might with equal profit be applied to other areas of philosophy. Indeed, there is an active research program in moral theory that treats moral concepts exactly as I treat epistemic concepts. Function-​first epistemology is therefore just one application of a much broader philosophical methodology, which we might call “function-​first philosophy.” I hope others will take up this research program and that this book will be useful to those interested in extending this method to other philosophical topics.

Finally, a few words about the current epistemological landscape. The idea that knowledge is deeply important has been roundly criticized in recent epistemology; for instance, it has been argued that we can fully

Introduction

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9

explain rational behavior without appealing to knowledge; that knowledge isn’t more valuable than justified true belief; that knowledge is an incoherent notion or a myth; and that we should instead focus on other epistemic states that are allegedly more important, such as understanding or wisdom.4 Many philosophers now believe the myopic focus on knowledge in the history of epistemology cannot be defended. Contrary to this trend, I believe that knowledge is fundamental to our epistemic life and belongs at the heart of epistemological theory. It will emerge from this book that life without knowledge, whether nasty and brutish or not, would be more solitary and almost certainly shorter.

4

Schiffer (1996), Kaplan (2003), Kvanvig (2003), Elgin (2006), BonJour (2010), and Grimm (2015a) defend versions of these claims.

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What’s the Point of Knowledge?

CHAPTER 1

Methodologies in Epistemology

It is by its methods rather than by its subject matter that philosophy is to be distinguished from the other arts and sciences.

—​a. j. ayer (1956: 7)

A. J. Ayer opens The Problem of Knowledge by remarking that philosophy is to be distinguished from other disciplines not by its subject matter but rather by its methods. Yet philosophy is increasingly preoccupied with determining the validity of its own methods. It is widely assumed that a deeper understanding of philosophical methodology is necessary for clarity and progress, but there is no consensus about which methodology is the right one.

Perhaps the most traditional method of philosophy is reductive conceptual analysis, the goal of which is to enumerate the necessary and sufficient conditions of some philosophically interesting concept. This style of philosophy goes all the way back to Socrates. In recent years, however, this method has come under attack from various perspectives. A result of these attacks has been increased disagreement about which methods to use and what types of data support philosophical claims. We now find on offer a variety of methods from which to choose; for instance, there is conceptual analysis, philosophical naturalism, experimental philosophy, practical explication, reverse engineering, and ordinary language philosophy, to name a few.1 Further, the evidence used to support philosophical theories includes intuitions elicited by thought experiments, linguistic data from ordinary usage, reflective judgments, and empirical science 1

Proponents of these views in epistemology include Jackson (1998), Kornblith (2002), Weinberg et al. (2001), Craig (1990), Dogramaci (2012), and Austin (1979).

What’s the Point of Knowledge? A Function-First Epistemology. Michael Hannon, Oxford University Press (2019). © Michael Hannon. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190914721.003.0002

(broadly construed). But there is little agreement about how to best evaluate these methods and how much support the various sources of evidence provide philosophical claims. For example, how easily should we reject our intuitive judgments? How much stock do we put in ordinary language usage? Do we require an Archimedean perspective from which to evaluate competing methodologies and theories?

There is no better way to test a proposed philosophical method than by examining how well it does in solving thorny philosophical problems. As Bertrand Russell once said, “nothing of any value can be said on method except through examples” (1914: 240). Following Russell’s advice, the main goal of this book is to make use of a fairly new methodology in epistemology that I call function-​first epistemology. But what is function-​first epistemology?

1.1 Function-​First Epistemology A function-​first epistemologist seeks to explain the nature and value of an epistemic concept, norm, or practice by reflecting on its function or purposes. The guiding idea is that we will better understand our epistemic concepts, norms, and practices by investigating what they are for. Thus, a function-​first epistemologist will ask questions like: Why do humans speak and think in terms of “knowing,” “understanding,” and “rationality”? What epistemological distinctions and norms would best facilitate human survival and flourishing? What might life be like without our current practices of epistemic evaluation? Do our concepts of epistemic evaluation carry much weight in science, philosophy, or daily life?

This way of doing epistemology is inspired by the work of Edward Craig, who developed a similar approach in his book Knowledge and the State of Nature.2 My view is deeply indebted to Craig, but the method of function-​first epistemology goes beyond his proposal in many ways.

Before I distinguish my view from Craig’s, however, I want to foreground our deepest and perhaps most important point of agreement. The central

2

This approach has interesting similarities and dissimilarities with Carnap’s (1950) method of “practical explication.” The task of explication is to transform an inexact concept (the explicandum) into an exact one (the explicatum), effectively replacing the former with the latter.

The adequacy of the explicatum is assessed in light of the theoretical purpose it is intended to serve in the target theory. Thus, like the function-​first approach, the method of explication is related to a purpose; but whereas the former refers to the purpose that the concept in question serves in our life, the latter focuses on the purpose that the concept is intended to serve within a target theory.

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hypothesis of my book is that the primary function of the concept of knowl­edge is to identify informants who are reliable enough to appropriately serve as sources of actionable information for members of our community. Craig pithily describes this basic idea as follows: the concept of knowledge is used to “flag approved sources of information” (1990: 11).

This puts the matter very roughly, of course; the chapters that follow will develop this hypothesis in great detail. For now, I will simply assert that this core idea has the potential to allow progress on a wide range of epistemological issues. Whether I eventually make good on this claim, the reader is left to decide.

I have said that my general strategy is to explore the nature and importance of epistemic evaluation by investigating the point or purposes of our epistemic concepts, norms, or practices. But how do we determine what role (or roles) our concepts, norms, or practices play and what needs they satisfy? Craig describes his methodology as follows: We take some prima facie plausible hypothesis about what the concept of knowledge does for us, what its role in our life might be, and then ask what a concept having that role would be like, what conditions would govern its application . . . then see to what extent it matches our everyday practice with the concept of knowledge as actually found. (1990: 2–​3)

As this passage makes clear, Craig uses this methodology to investigate the concept of knowledge. But we may generalize this approach by applying it to epistemic evaluation more broadly. After all, humans have a range of predicates that serve to evaluate the epistemic position of others, such as “knows,” “understands,” and “justifies.” We can therefore ask what the point is of each term of epistemological appraisal.

I will focus primarily on knowledge in this book, but I will also extend function-​first epistemology to investigate the nature, purpose, and value of human understanding.

Taking our cue from the passage quoted above, we may characterize the “function-​first” strategy as involving three broad steps. First, we start with some hypothesis about the role of some epistemic concept (norm, practice) in our life. (For simplicity, I will henceforth speak primarily of concepts and set aside norms and practices.) In order for this hypothesis to be plausible, it must be compatible with certain facts about human life, such as facts about our physical environment, our social organization, our cognitive capacities, and the basic aims and interests humans typically have. These facts about humans and their circumstances will then give rise

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to a certain conceptual need that is supposed to be satisfied by the purpose described by our hypothesis.

Second, we try to determine what a concept having this role would be like (i.e., what conditions would govern its application). At this second stage we can perhaps gain new insights about familiar conceptual issues such as the factivity of knowledge, the relationship between knowledge and epistemic luck, and further questions about the necessary conditions for knowing, understanding, and other epistemic states. Once we better appreciate the role of the relevant concept in human life, we can ask what features a concept that satisfies this role would have; for instance, would the presence of epistemic luck threaten the function of the concept of knowledge? If so, then we have a reason to regard knowledge as incompatible with epistemic luck. I will not pretend to resolve every issue about the nature of knowledge that is raised in the course of this book, but at certain points I will try to indicate where my account could be developed in different ways.

Third, we must examine the extent to which the concept we have constructed matches our everyday notion. In this way, our investigation is anchored by the ordinary concept that we are looking to explicate.

Suppose, for example, that we are investigating the concept of knowledge.

If our investigation were to reach a result quite different from the intuitive extension of the word “knows,” then, as Craig says, “barring some special and especially plausible explanation of the mismatch, our original hypoth­ esis about the role that the concept plays in our life would of course be the first casualty” (1990: 2). Our aim is to construct a concept that not only functions in the manner suggested by our hypothesis, but also one that fits our intuitions (or explains why our intuitions diverge). Thus, while function comes “first” on this approach, it is not the last word.

This methodology has many benefits. Indeed, I aim to show that some of the most pressing issues in epistemology can be resolved by taking a function-​first approach. It will take considerable time and argument to display these benefits in full view, but five of these benefits can be stated up front.

First, this method allows us to illuminate the importance of knowl­ edge, understanding, and other epistemic states. After all, we evaluate individuals as having or lacking knowledge (understanding, etc.) and these evaluations seem to matter, so our epistemological theory should explain why they matter. Second, this approach can shed light on the nature of knowledge (understanding, etc.), since we can ask what knowledge (understanding, etc.) must be like in order to play its distinctive role in

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epistemic evaluation. Third, function-​first epistemology can help us resolve conflicts of intuitions about cases, since we can appeal to claims about the role of our epistemic concepts to adjudicate between conflicting intuitions. In other words, it offers a way of doing “postintuitive epistemology.” Fourth, we can avoid verbal disputes about how to use words like “knows,” “understands,” and so on. As David Chalmers (2011) argues, one way to avoid descent into purely terminological debates is to clearly indicate what theoretical roles the concept in question is supposed to play, and then to theorize about what would enable the concept to best play those roles.3 Finally, this approach will allow me to explain what is right about other theories in the literature in epistemology—​or so I will argue.

This is all fairly abstract. A way to further improve our understanding of function-​first epistemology is by comparing it with other approaches and highlighting the differences between them. The next four sections will look at the following philosophical frameworks: traditional conceptual analysis, knowledge-​first epistemology, reverse engineering epistemic evaluations, and epistemological naturalism. I make no attempt to provide a comprehensive survey of the available alternatives. Rather, I discuss these approaches because the juxtaposition illuminates what is distinctive about function-​first epistemology. By comparing and contrasting these approaches with my own, we will get a better grip on what function-​first epistemology is and why it is useful. This lays the metaepistemological foundation for the rest of the book, which uses this methodology to make progress on a wide range of issues in epistemology.

1.2 Conceptual Analysis in Epistemology Epistemologists have largely been interested in analyzing propositional knowledge. This type of knowledge is commonly expressed using the schema “S knows that p” (or “S knows whether p”), where “S” refers to the knowing subject and “p” to the proposition that is known. Analyses of propositional knowledge have largely overshadowed attempts to elucidate other types of knowledge, such as knowledge-​how (e.g., knowing how to ride a bike) and knowledge by acquaintance (e.g., knowing John).

One might question whether it is right to make propositional knowledge the central focus of epistemology, but this book will concentrate mainly on propositional knowledge. I am interested in propositional knowledge

3

Smithies (2015) mentions similar benefits.

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because, first, I want to contribute to existing debates that share this focus and, second, propositions are the most common vehicle of transmittable information. While my aim is to develop a unified theory of propositional knowledge, I am open to the possibility of a nonreducible variety of uses of “know,” not all of which can be assimilated into my account.

A philosophical “analysis” has traditionally been understood as enumerating a concept’s individually necessary and jointly sufficient conditions. The basic idea is that questions like “What is knowledge?” or “What is truth?” can be answered on the basis of one’s grasp of the relevant concepts, and the ideal result is an analysis formulated as a biconditional that states necessary and sufficient conditions. This method can be traced back to ancient Greece. Socrates believed that in order to get clear about some concept we had to find the element(s) necessarily common in all its application conditions. The most famous analysis of this form is the “justified true belief” theory of knowledge, which Edmund Gettier (1963) attributes to Plato, A. J. Ayer, and Roderick Chisholm. According to this view, for any subject S and any proposition p, S knows that p if and only if S has a justified true belief that p. Knowledge is therefore understood in terms of three individually necessary and jointly sufficient conditions: justification, truth, and belief. I will call this the “traditional analysis of knowledge.”

Today it is widely accepted that Gettier refuted the traditional analysis of knowledge in 1963.4 He described two cases in which a person satisfies the three putative conditions for knowledge and yet this person does not seem to qualify as a knower, thereby demonstrating that these conditions are unsatisfactory. In subsequent decades much philosophical work was devoted to finding a Gettier-​proof analysis of knowledge in terms of true belief plus some other factor (or factors). While these solutions differ in their details, they all presumed the traditional account of knowledge was roughly right but in need of modification to deal with Gettier-​type counterexamples. Even critics of the proposed solutions to the so-​called Gettier problem tended to leave open the possibility that some other set of conditions were necessary and sufficient for knowledge. A guiding presumption at this time was that an adequate theory of knowledge must provide a list of such conditions for knowing. As Timothy Williamson writes, 4

Bertrand Russell unintentionally provided a counterexample to the traditional analysis of knowledge in 1948. In Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits, he describes a scenario in which a subject forms an (accidentally) justified true belief that it is two o’clock on the basis of looking at a clock that stopped twelve hours ago. Russell takes this as a counterexample to the proposal that knowledge is true belief, but he did not seem to notice that the agent’s belief is also justified.

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“the received idea is that we can conceptualize the factors whose conjunction with belief is necessary and sufficient for knowledge independently of knowledge” (2000: 3). In a similar vein, Alan Millar says: It has been widely assumed over the last fifty years or so that epistemology, so far as it addresses the nature of knowledge, should issue in a conceptual analysis of knowledge-​that—​a statement of necessary and sufficient conditions for the truth of instances of the schema X knows that p in terms that do not implicate the concept of knowledge. (2007: 197)

Philosophers therefore searched for an “anti-​Gettier condition”—​a condition that must be added to true belief, or justified true belief, to have knowl­edge. Were this found, it would presumably give us a complete analysis of knowledge.

For better or worse, all attempts to analyze knowledge in this way have succumbed to a pattern of counterexamples. This point is well known, so I will not survey the many failed attempts to analyze knowledge in this way.5 Instead, I will suppose (not entirely uncontroversially) that no satisfactory reductive analysis of knowledge is currently available. What, then, are the prospects for achieving an analysis of knowledge?

If Williamson is right, the prospects are dim. In Knowledge and Its Limits, Williamson considers several reasons why we might suppose that knowledge must be analyzed into conceptually prior components (e.g., belief, truth, etc.), but he finds them all wanting. Further, there are two powerful inductive arguments against reductive conceptual analysis. First, the intractability of the traditional project provides us with a good reason to think that whatever the next proposed analysis might be, sooner or later a counterexample will emerge. Second, this research program has been unsuccessful in areas of philosophy outside of epistemology. Indeed, philosophers have been unable to provide convincing analyses of almost any philosophically interesting concept. As Stephen Stich claims, “No commonsense concept that has been studied has turned out to be analyzable into a set of necessary and sufficient conditions” (1992: 250). Similarly, Jerry Fodor says that “the number of concepts whose analyses have so far been determined continues to hover stubbornly around none” (2003: 6).

And William Lycan reminds us that “no effort of analytic philosophy to

5

Others have done that adequately. See Shope (1983), Fogelin (1994), and Lycan (2006) for a review of this literature.

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provide strictly necessary and sufficient conditions for a philosophically interesting concept has ever succeeded” (2006: 150).

At present, there is no convincing reason to expect knowledge to be analyzable into logically necessary and sufficient conditions. A growing number of philosophers are therefore distancing themselves from the traditional and voluminous attempts to analyze knowledge this way. Instead of assuming that traditional analyses were basically on the right track, which is a thought Wittgenstein believed “shackled philosophical investigations” (1964: 26–​27), philosophers are increasingly skeptical about reductive conceptual analysis. Williamson calls it a “degenerating research programme” (2000: 31) and Craig suggests we set aside this method in favor of an “alternative angle” (1990: 2).

This book is an attempt to develop a rigorous way of doing epistemology outside the paradigm of the traditional view. Unlike traditional analysis, the goal of function-​first epistemology is not to enumerate the necessary and sufficient conditions of our epistemic concepts. It is dangerous to presume that our concepts must be analyzed in this way, since this can prove too restrictive in our theorizing. As a function-​first epistemologist, I am interested in identifying what might be called the “core” of our epistemic concepts and practices. This allows me to specify conditions that hold only for the most part, but not always.

An advantage of this approach is that, unlike reductive conceptual analysis, we need not ignore important characteristics of our epistemic concepts. On the traditional approach, a theory will be rejected in the face of any counterexample, irrespective of how rare or odd that counterexample might be. For example, if one were to devise a strange case involving a subject who knows that p without believing that p, then belief would simply vanish from our theory of knowledge. It would vanish despite the fact that people generally believe what they know.6 We function-​first epistemologists, however, do not give such enormous power to these alleged “counterexamples.” Rather, we allow features that are extremely important, but not obviously necessary, to play a crucial role in our epistemological theorizing. This is a theoretical asset because philosophers should be open to the possibility that explaining the nature and value of our epistemic concepts, norms, and practices will partly come from certain contingent characteristics. And yet this idea seems unthinkable on the traditional approach.

6

I take this example from Craig (1990: 14).

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While a function-​first epistemologist will not presume that our epistemic concepts are analyzable into necessary and sufficient conditions, this methodology is still perfectly compatible with that goal. Reflecting on the role of some epistemic concept, and the conditions that would govern its application, might ultimately issue in necessary and sufficient conditions. Who knows? But regardless of how things turn out, a benefit of this approach is that it would explain why a certain epistemic concept has the features it does have. We should simply regard it as an open question whether an account of our epistemic concepts will fit comfortably into a list of necessary and sufficient conditions (see Craig 1990: 5).

It is surprising that many scholars have misinterpreted Craig on this issue. Unlike Williamson, Craig does not think our worries about traditional analysis are sufficient to mandate the rejection of this approach.

Rather, he takes the problems facing traditional analyses to justify considering alternative approaches. But some commentators have mistakenly interpreted Craig as proposing that epistemologists should “eschew” (McBain 2004: 193) or “abandon” (Jones 1997: 435) traditional analysis, or that “the project of analysis is hopeless and should be replaced” (Ichikawa and Jenkins 2017). This reading is too strong, for Craig nowhere recommends that we abandon the traditional way of analyzing knowledge.

He simply thinks we should consider other options.

To be charitable, let’s temporarily suppose that knowledge can be analyzed in the traditional way. Even if this were possible, there is still a good reason to think traditional analyses are inadequate. Craig makes this point: Let us suppose, however optimistically, that the problem of the analysis of the everyday meaning of ‘know’ had both been shown to exist and subsequently solved, so that agreed necessary and sufficient conditions for the ascription of knowledge were now on the table. That would be a considerable technical achievement and no doubt a long round of hearty applause would be in order, but I hope that philosophers would not regard it as a terminus, as many writers make one feel they would. I should like it to be seen as a prolegomenon to a further inquiry: why has a concept demarcated by those conditions enjoyed such widespread use? (1990: 2)

In other words, even if the project of reductive analysis were successful, it would leave unanswered some significant questions in our epistemological theorizing—​questions that a function-​first approach tackles head on.

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Panayot Butchvarov considers this the most characteristic symptom of the inadequacy of traditional accounts of knowledge. He says that “an adequate account of the concept of knowledge must display its essential place in the conceptual framework through which we would most perspicuously understand ourselves, our life, and the world in which we live” (1970: 25–​ 26). Such an account must address the question of how, and why, if we lacked the concept of knowledge, we would introduce such a concept.

Yet traditional accounts of knowledge, even if correct, fail to show why knowl­edge should have the features it has (e.g., truth, justification, and belief), how these are related to one another, and why these must be present for knowledge. There is something deeply unsatisfying with an account that leaves these questions unanswered. I hope to explain why our concept of knowledge has the features it does and why this concept plays a crucial role in our life.

1.3 Knowledge-​First Epistemology A function-​first epistemologist will not analyze knowledge in the traditional way, but the traditional approach still shapes her research program.

To illustrate this idea, recall the central hypothesis of this book (which I’ll defend in the next chapter): the primary function of the concept of knowl­ edge is to identify reliable informants. This presupposes that true belief is more basic than knowledge and must be explicable independently of the concept of knowledge. But this very starting point is controversial.

In Knowledge and Its Limits, Williamson argues that it is mistaken to stipulate that inquirers want “true beliefs about our environment, as though this were somehow more basic than our need for knowledge of the environment” (2000: 31). Williamson is not necessarily proposing an alternative methodology to mine, but our views have sufficiently different starting points to make it worth considering his view here. In particular, my account is predicated on the conceptual development of true belief toward knowledge, whereas Williamson’s “knowledge-​first” account leaves no room for such conceptual development in logical space. Knowledge, says Williamson, is primitive: it cannot be analyzed in terms of more basic components like truth, belief, and justification. Epistemologists should instead take knowledge as basic and use it to understand justification, belief, and other things. Thus, Williamson would not characterize an inquirer as someone who wants a true belief as to whether p, but rather as someone who wants to know whether p. Characterizing inquiry this way

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is incompatible with my approach. If the concept of knowledge were employed in selecting the conditions of a reliable informant, as Williamson claims, this would cripple my account.7 Craig acknowledges a similar worry. He asks, “Shouldn’t being a good informant be explained in terms of knowing whether p, rather than the other way around?” (1990: 94). In other words, doesn’t one need to know before qualifying as a good informant? Knowing seems primary, whereas being a good informant seems to require that one be a knower plus some other factors.8 The objection that true belief is not conceptually prior to knowledge, and that we cannot understand knowledge in terms of true belief, is an important one. If this were correct, then my proposal would be constructed on a shaky foundation. I find Williamson’s proposal fascinating, but an adequate discussion of his view would take us too far afield. This is because his claim that knowing is a simple and general factive mental state is not based on any straightforward, knockdown argument. Rather, it relies on an overall package of related theories along with several considerations against various grounds for resistance. For this reason, I will not provide a direct reply to Williamson’s proposal. But this need not bring our investigation to a halt. Having acknowledged this dissenting voice, we may show it to be doubtful by developing a plausible alternative. I will argue that by starting with the idea of an inquirer who wants true beliefs, we are ultimately led to a comprehensive account of the nature and value of knowledge.

This approach has at least two advantages over Williamson’s. First, Williamson presents his view as arising from the ashes of the current and inadequate approaches to knowledge. It is because he thinks these approaches run aground on important considerations that he is motivated to try his radical alternative. This means we can remove some of the motivation for Williamson’s knowledge-​first approach by showing that epistemological progress is possible without treating knowledge as a s mental state that cannot be understood in terms of more basic epistemic notions.

As I will argue, knowledge is best understood in terms of the idea of a good informant, and we get at the nature of knowledge by reflecting on the criteria for being a good informant. A second advantage of my approach In some ways, function-​first epistemology is compatible with the idea that knowledge is primitive; for instance, we could try to explain the roles and value of the (primitive) concept of knowledge. However, it is difficult to see how Williamson could opt for anything less than a rejection of the view I develop, since I treat true belief as more basic than knowledge.

8 Versions of this objection can be found in Schmitt (1992), Feldman (1997), and Fricker (2015).

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