Brian Porter, Kelli Barr, Abdellatif Bencherifa, Wesley Buckwalter, Yasuo Deguchi, Emanuele Fabiano, Takaaki Hashimoto, Julia Halamova, Joshua Homan, Kaori Karasawa, Martin Kanovsky, Hakjin Kim, Jordan Kiper, Minha Lee, Xiaofei Liu, Veli Mitova, Rukmini Bhaya, Ljiljana Pantovic, Pablo Quintanilla, Josien Reijer, Pedro Romero, Purmina Singh, Salma Tber, Daniel Wilkenfeld, Stephen Stich, Clark Barrett, Edouard Machery
{"title":"A puzzle about knowledge ascriptions","authors":"Brian Porter, Kelli Barr, Abdellatif Bencherifa, Wesley Buckwalter, Yasuo Deguchi, Emanuele Fabiano, Takaaki Hashimoto, Julia Halamova, Joshua Homan, Kaori Karasawa, Martin Kanovsky, Hakjin Kim, Jordan Kiper, Minha Lee, Xiaofei Liu, Veli Mitova, Rukmini Bhaya, Ljiljana Pantovic, Pablo Quintanilla, Josien Reijer, Pedro Romero, Purmina Singh, Salma Tber, Daniel Wilkenfeld, Stephen Stich, Clark Barrett, Edouard Machery","doi":"10.1111/nous.12515","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Philosophers have argued that stakes affect knowledge: a given amount of evidence may suffice for knowledge if the stakes are low, but not if the stakes are high. By contrast, empirical work on the influence of stakes on ordinary knowledge ascriptions has been divided along methodological lines: “evidence‐fixed” prompts rarely find stakes effects, while “evidence‐seeking” prompts consistently find them. We present a cross‐cultural study using <jats:italic>both</jats:italic> evidence‐fixed and evidence‐seeking prompts with a diverse sample of 17 populations in 11 countries, speaking 14 languages. Our study is the first to use an evidence‐seeking prompt cross‐culturally, and includes several previously untested populations (including indigenous populations). Across cultures, we <jats:italic>do not find</jats:italic> evidence of a stakes effect with our evidence‐fixed prompt, but <jats:italic>do</jats:italic> with our evidence‐seeking prompt. We argue that the divergent results reveal a tension within folk epistemology: people's beliefs about when it is appropriate to ascribe knowledge differ significantly from their actual practice in ascribing knowledge.","PeriodicalId":501006,"journal":{"name":"Noûs","volume":"365 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2024-07-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Noûs","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1111/nous.12515","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Philosophers have argued that stakes affect knowledge: a given amount of evidence may suffice for knowledge if the stakes are low, but not if the stakes are high. By contrast, empirical work on the influence of stakes on ordinary knowledge ascriptions has been divided along methodological lines: “evidence‐fixed” prompts rarely find stakes effects, while “evidence‐seeking” prompts consistently find them. We present a cross‐cultural study using both evidence‐fixed and evidence‐seeking prompts with a diverse sample of 17 populations in 11 countries, speaking 14 languages. Our study is the first to use an evidence‐seeking prompt cross‐culturally, and includes several previously untested populations (including indigenous populations). Across cultures, we do not find evidence of a stakes effect with our evidence‐fixed prompt, but do with our evidence‐seeking prompt. We argue that the divergent results reveal a tension within folk epistemology: people's beliefs about when it is appropriate to ascribe knowledge differ significantly from their actual practice in ascribing knowledge.