What is appreciation?

Abstract

It is commonplace amongst epistemologists to note the importance of grasping or appreciating one’s evidence. The idea seems to be that agents cannot successfully utilize evidence without it. Despite the popularity of this claim, the nature of appreciating or grasping evidence is unclear. This paper develops an account of what it takes to appreciate the epistemic relevance of one’s evidence, such that it can be used for some specific conclusion. I propose a basing account on which appreciating evidence involves being able to correctly base. That is, the agent is disposed to base various conclusions on her evidence that are objectively supported by that evidence. She can also derive correct conclusions if her evidence were slightly different. This account is cognitively undemanding, and explains why appreciation is crucial for the core functions of using evidence, like excluding hypotheses and probabilistic reasoning. I contrast this view with possible rival accounts and argue that the rival accounts add nothing over and above the basing account.