Hostname: page-component-8678677fb7-h96qj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-10-14T06:56:44.848Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Proper Work of the Intellect

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2019

NICK TREANOR Open the ORCID record for NICK TREANOR [Opens in a new window]
NICK TREANOR*
Affiliation:
UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGHnick.treanor@ed.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

There is a familiar teleological picture of epistemic normativity on which it is grounded in the goal or good of belief, which is taken in turn to be the acquisition of truth and the avoidance of error. There is also a widespread platitude to the effect that this is at heart two distinct goals in tension with one another. The teleological picture faces numerous challenges, but one of the most interesting is an argument that rests on this platitude. This paper looks more closely at the standard way of understanding the truth goal, drawing out its explicit and implicit features. The aim will be to show that the standard way the truth goal is understood is deeply mistaken, to propose and defend an alternative model, and to show how this alternative model restores the unity of the goal and its potential to ground and explain the normative dimensions of belief.

Keywords

epistemic normativityepistemic valueveritismtruth consequentialismvirtue epistemology

Information

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the American Philosophical Association , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , Spring 2019 , pp. 22 - 40
Copyright
Copyright © American Philosophical Association 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

David, Marian. (2001) ‘Truth as the Epistemic Goal’. In Steup, Matthias (ed.), Knowledge, Truth and Duty: Essays on Epistemic Justification, Responsibility, and Virtue (New York: Oxford University Press), 151–69.Google Scholar
Goldman, Alvin. (1999) Knowledge in a Social World. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
James, William. (1912) The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy. New York: Longmans, Green, and Company.Google Scholar
Kitcher, Philip. (1993) The Advancement of Science: Science without Legend, Objectivity without Illusions. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lewis, David. (1983) ‘New Work for a Theory of Universals’. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 61, 343–77.Google Scholar
Riggs, Wayne. (2003) ‘Balancing Our Epistemic Goals’. Noûs, 37, 342–52.Google Scholar
Sosa, Ernest. (2000) ‘For the Love of Truth’. In Zagzebski, Linda and Fairweather, Abrol (eds.), Virtue Epistemology: Essays on Epistemic Virtue and Responsibility (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 49–62.Google Scholar
Treanor, Nick. (2013) ‘The Measure of Knowledge’. Noûs, 47, 577–601.Google Scholar
Treanor, Nick. (2014) ‘Trivial Truths and the Aim of Inquiry’. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 84, 552–59.Google Scholar
Treanor, Nick. (2018) ‘Truth and Epistemic Value’. European Journal of Philosophy, 26, 1057–68.Google Scholar