The Constitutive Aim of Inquiry

Abstract

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in epistemic agency among philosophers. This development is in part owing to a growing interest in mental agency and epistemic normativity, along with associated concepts such as epistemic responsibility and the relationship between epistemic rationality and practical rationality. Most authors have focused solely on our agency exercised in the process of acquiring or forming beliefs in response to reasons. But some have examined temporally extended procedural epistemic agency, in particular our agency exercised in the process of inquiry. In this article, I argue for an account of procedural epistemic normativity grounded in a conception of the constitutive aim of inquiry. In doing so I will examine how an account of the constitutive aim of inquiry may both differ from and be like accounts of the constitutive aim of belief and the constitutive aim of intentional action. I propose that the constitutive aim of inquiry is understanding and that the aim of understanding may provide us with the norms of inquiry.