Traditional philosophy of religion has been put under pressure to reform from different theoretical camps in the last few decades. One of the most salient charges is that the focus on belief as the mark of religion fails to capture a wide variety of religious phenomena and practices, particularly those outside of the Abrahamitic traditions. As a response to this challenge, this article proposes and develops the notion of religious alief as an additional analytical tool to conceptualize religious phenomena that elude characterization in terms of belief. This article first introduces religious aliefs as largely automatic, habitual mental states that influence behavior, feelings, and attitudes, even when a person does not hold an overt or tacit belief in the supernatural content involved. Subsequently, this article argues that religious phenomena such as apotropaic rituals, purification rituals, spontaneous prayer in crisis, jinx (and other folk-religious notions), certain taboos, and the recently coined Somethingism can be explained in terms of religious aliefs.

Moral disagreement is often taken to undermine claims of moral knowledge. Here, I try to show this widely held view is not true of all moral disagreements. Imagine you encounter MJ. MJ is devoted to excellence in basketball, and he excels at it in a way very few ever have. However, this single-minded pursuit blinds him to other considerations. He is indifferent to larger moral issues and expresses toxic masculinity in his interactions with others. He demeans and degrades others to win basketball games. Suppose you know that, even in ideal conditions, you would not agree on how to live. You have incompatible values. However, you do not think MJ is a fool or evil. You find his achievements to be inspiring. He has his faults but leads a good life. Now, imagine that MJ becomes familiar with your life. He is puzzled by your obsession with philosophy and thinks you are too morally sensitive. Nevertheless, he finds something to appreciate in your life. A person you admire with different fundamental values admires you. As long as you accept that there are better and worse ways of moral thinking, you can accept this moral epistemology regardless of your moral metaphysics.

In recent epistemology, introspection principles are commonly rejected. One of the central reasons for this is the adoption of Williamson’s anti-luminosity arguments (1996, 2000) and the popularity of the associated epistemic externalist position. This rejection, however, comes with theoretical costs concerning the applications of introspection principles in epistemic and doxastic logic and modeling cooperative behavior. In this paper, I provide a way to solve this dilemma by arguing that the principle KB – expressing one’s privileged knowledge of their beliefs – remains unscathed by Williamson’s argument while saving the important theoretical applications introspective principles are used for. I propose a way of justifying KB and rejecting KK on principled grounds using Byrne’s (Byrne, A. (2005). ‘Introspection.’ Philosophical Topics 33(1), 79–104., Byrne, A. (2018). Transparency and Self-Knowledge. Oxford: Oxford University Press.) transparency account of introspection, improving upon a previous attempt by Das and Salow (Das, N. and Salow, B. (2018). ‘Transparency and the KK Principle.’ Noûs 52(1), 3–23.). This defense of KB, unlike many in the literature, is consistent with epistemic externalism and allows one to reject the problematic KK principle and maintain that non-introspective knowledge is guided by Williamson’s margin-for-error principle.

Despite years of efforts to combat disinformation, we remain far from a satisfactory set of solutions. The rise of generative AI, which enables the creation of highly credible fake content at scale, suggests that the problem is likely to grow even more severe. Lessons from the recent pandemic also call for a reconsideration of how disinformation should be addressed. This paper proposes a new approach that focuses not only on regulating everyone who spreads false information, but also on those who hold epistemic power – individuals with the capacity to shape what others know or believe. Such a strategy has the potential to move the debate forward, as it avoids the most common objection to disinformation regulation: the fear of widespread censorship. The paper argues that an individual’s epistemic position can justifiably differentiate their legal duties, and that those who possess epistemic power should bear corresponding legal – specifically, criminal – responsibility for the abuse of that power in spreading disinformation.

John Dewey holds that uncertainty is a central feature of the concrete interaction between organism and environment, and he mobilizes this diagnosis to explain both the emergence of inquiry and the persistence of speculative and abstract philosophies. However, we show that material reality is not uncertain and that the quest for certainty cannot explain the flight from the concrete, but should explain a return to it. Drawing on historical, philosophical, and sociological sources (most notably Edgar Zilsel’s thesis and the embodied knowledge of artisans) we invert Dewey’s interpretative framework: epistemic uncertainty arises not from material reality, but from theoretical abstraction. This reinterpretation enables a reformulation of Dewey’s critique of dualism and provides the basis for a pragmatist epistemology grounded in the relative stability of practical experience. Finally, it opens the way for a reconsideration of the foundations of democracy from a non-relativistic perspective.

The division of cognitive labor leads to what Barry has recently called epistemic alienation: a problematic separation of individuals from epistemic goods. According to Barry, individuals are alienated from epistemic virtues because an efficient division of cognitive labor requires them to manifest a lack of virtues. I argue that this is a mistaken diagnosis of the source of epistemic alienation. Participating in high-functioning collectives does not prevent individuals from being robustly virtuous; rather, our cognitive limitations make it impossible for us to live up to the highest standards of epistemic conduct. Collectives transcend these cognitive limitations to achieve what individuals cannot by harnessing those same limitations in their members. Furthermore, I argue that we should distinguish the epistemic weaknesses that facilitate the division of cognitive labor from those that result from the division of labor. Only the latter are aspects of epistemic alienation. By dividing our cognitive labor over larger populations of agents and artifacts, we have massively accelerated our rate of epistemic productivity but have thereby created conditions that are variously inhospitable for the thinking of individuals by alienating them from the products, processes, and environments of inquiry. These forms of separation are problematic insofar as they amplify intellectual vices, incapacitate reason, and induce cognitive biases.

Accounts of common knowledge typically focus on how to represent what agents would know when they achieve common knowledge, instead of asking how agents achieve common knowledge. In this paper, by modifying a definition proposed by David Lewis, I generate a set of conditions the satisfaction of which would entail that a group of agents has common knowledge, properly so-called. I then ask what it would take to satisfy these conditions. I argue that these conditions can be satisfied and common knowledge achieved in the course of a conversation if, but only if, we adopt a particularly strong interpretation of Austin’s claim that the successful performance of a speech act requires the securing of uptake. I then argue that the generalization of this result to conversations involving more than two people requires that the audience to whom a speech act is addressed be able to recognize themselves as the audience of the speech act, in an essentially plural act of recognition. I close by arguing that one of the so-called paradoxes of common knowledge (the coordinated attack problem) in fact gives us some reason to favor Austin’s account of speech acts and therefore some reason to believe that common knowledge can, on occasion, arise.

In this paper, I argue that reactive feelings such as betrayal and personal disappointment are not inherent to the attitude of trust. Instead, such feelings are better understood as responses to impairments in relationships. Trust, I propose, is a fully doxastic mechanism that fundamentally consists of the belief that the trustee will follow through on the norms constitutive of the relationship, such that a breach of trust directly calls only for an epistemic reassessment of the trustee’s trustworthiness. I further show that what warrants reactive feelings is not the mere fact of trust being broken, but whether, through the violation of trust, the person reveals a disregard for the relationship.

This article focuses on how to answer the question: How can we better characterize the more significant epistemic advantages in knowledge-how of the members of oppressed social groups who are participating within scientific communities? My approach diverges from previous ways of answering this question by focusing on the epistemic advantages that are associated with the processes of critical reflection through which agents develop their conceptual frameworks. In particular, I argue that developing multiple, conflicting conceptual frameworks gives agents epistemic advantages in their abilities to both identify potentially problematic assumptions of these frameworks and to improve upon those assumptions that are judged to be problematic. That is to say, this paper aims to show both that there is a scientifically relevant knowledge-how of critically reflecting on the under-examined assumptions within one’s conceptual frameworks and that insider-outsider members of scientific communities will have certain epistemic advantages when it comes to developing this knowledge-how.

Can we rationally double-check something we already know? Those who say “no” endorse the Ignorance Norm, which states that we should not ask a question whose answer we already know, thereby classifying double-checking as improper. Those who say “yes” reject the Ignorance Norm, instead proposing a broader norm that accommodates double-checking. I argue that both positions are unsatisfactory. Instead, I propose a novel solution that offers two key advantages over existing accounts. First, it preserves the Ignorance Norm. Second, it treats double-checking as a proper form of asking questions. The proposed solution draws on insights from speech act theory, arguing for a distinction between the default way of asking questions – governed by the Ignorance Norm – and the practice of double-checking which is subject to a stronger norm. While in default contexts we ask questions to acquire knowledge, in cases of double-checking we seek further epistemic goods, such as certainty or second-order knowledge.

Critical thinking is supported by a rich and diverse literature, with particularly close ties to argumentation theory and informal logic. It has often been presented in terms of a set of skills and dispositions, with the latter exemplified through the figure of an ideal critical thinker. These accounts of the relevant dispositions are intuitive and tend to emphasize openness, clarity, and a concern for truth. Seemingly running against this impression, it is argued here that an ideal critical thinker can willfully engage in fallacious argumentation. This surprising possibility is grounded in the distinction between thinking and arguing, with the literature on critical thinking being implicitly and rightly limited to the former. The argument draws on an established account of critical thinking dispositions, a simple supporting view of the nature of dispositions, and analogies to familiar phenomena like lying. The result complements existing work on the subject in terms of what a critical thinker should do, contributing to our understanding of the conceptual boundaries of critical thinking and argumentation proper.

What does decolonial justice require in response to the epistemic devastation of colonisation? Recent work proposes restoring lost epistemic status or compensating victims with epistemic goods. I argue that neither restitution nor compensation is a viable response to the destruction of Indigenous knowledge systems. Drawing on international law and reparations theory, I show that these frameworks neglect the role of proportionality as a normative constraint on adequate redress. Once this constraint is taken seriously, it becomes clear that the logic of repair is incompatible with the aims of decolonisation.

Open-mindedness requires us to be receptive to new evidence that contradicts our own views. Laurie Paul (2021) argues that there are situations in which we should, in fact, avoid exposure to putative evidence, as it may undermine our rational abilities. One example she discusses is the sensus divinitatis (SD) as a transformative experience. If an atheist agrees to be exposed to this experience, he may become a theist and, by his pre-transformation atheistic standards, irrational. Paul contends that we have valid reasons to avoid encountering putative evidence in these circumstances. This paper will argue that there are rational strategies to help us determine whether to expose ourselves to transformative experiences like the SD.

A state is luminous if and only if, whenever one is in it, one is in a position to know that one is. A state is bright if and only if, whenever one is in it, one is in a position to believe that one is. Beliefs have long been regarded, both historically and from a contemporary perspective, as luminous and bright. This paper evaluates Timothy Williamson’s influential anti-luminosity arguments as they apply to the luminosity and brightness of belief. While his margin-for-error argument may effectively challenge the luminosity of knowledge, it cannot be straightforwardly extended to undermine either the luminosity or the brightness of belief. Some authors responded to the more general anti-luminosity argument based on a constitutive connection between states and attitudes. An influential reply on Williamson’s behalf by Srinavasan in terms of degrees of confidence opens way to the claim that there is a constitutive connection between confidence and belief. The more general argument, in the specific case of belief, can then be resisted by drawing on independently defensible views of how we form beliefs about our own beliefs.

Higher-order uncertainty is uncertainty about what one’s evidence supports. In many cases, a rational reaction to such uncertainty is to engage in inquiring activities like double-checking or redeliberating, with the aim of securing a firmer grasp of the evidence. An attractive idea is to account for the epistemic impact of higher-order uncertainty in terms of these inquiring activities. However, I argue that zetetic accounts along these lines are, at best, incomplete, because they cannot deal satisfactorily with cases in which higher-order uncertainty persists even if further inquiry is not required (cases at the end of inquiry). In this paper, I put forward a more general account of the impact of higher-order uncertainty. On this view, higher-order uncertainty may defeat propositional justification by undermining one’s access to the relevant evidence. Losing access to some evidence often calls for further inquiry. However, when this further inquiring is ineffective, inadvisable, or merely optional, one may be justified to adopt instead revised attitudes that fit one’s limited access to the evidence. This proposal accounts for the impact of higher-order uncertainty at the end of inquiry and offers an appealing explanation of the relations between this type of uncertainty and inquiry.

The Dogmatism Paradox begins with the claim that I know some proposition p and uses apparently good reasoning to draw a seemingly irrational dogmatic conclusion: that I should therefore dismiss any new evidence against p. A standard solution to this paradox is to note that when I acquire new evidence against p, that evidence defeats my justification for believing p. As a result, I no longer know that p, and so the reasoning used to generate the paradox begins with a false premise.

By appealing to recent work in social epistemology by Endre Begby and C. Thi Nguyen, I develop a new, stronger version of the Dogmatism Paradox that is immune to this standard solution. This version of the Dogmatism Paradox has significant consequences for contemporary polarized political disagreements, in which subjects on both sides of the disagreement have reason to distrust new evidence against their beliefs. So, unless the paradox can be solved, many political disagreements in sufficiently polarized communities will turn out to be rationally intractable in the sense that agreement can only be reached by one side irrationally revising their beliefs.

In this article, I present a potential counterexample to Lackey’s Group Agent Account of group beliefs. I argue that cases of pluralistic ignorance pose a problem for Lackey’s Group Agent Account because, in such cases, it systematically yields the wrong ascriptions of belief. I then discuss two ways to improve the Group Agent Account, which I call the Group Agent Account with Open Expression and the Group Agent Account with Sincere Open Expression, that make it immune to the pluralistic ignorance problem. However, I argue that the Group Agent Account with Open Expression and the Group Agent Account with Sincere Open Expression face their own problems that cannot be straightforwardly solved. I conclude by arguing that pluralistic ignorance is not a minor problem but one that generally affects summative approaches, such as the Group Agent Account, and provides evidence in support of nonsummative accounts of group beliefs.