Knowledge and Argument

Abstract

I argue that knowledge plays a distinctive role in psychological explanation that weaker epistemic states cannot because it is robust in the face of counterevidence in a way that they are not. Being robust in the face of counterevidence makes your belief robust in the face of counterargument. This makes knowledge well‐suited to facilitate epistemic social coordination. Since executive‐level belief revision works by running offline simulations that check for robustness in the face of counterargument, knowledge plays an explanatory role in executive‐level belief revision as well. The self‐monitoring system is in effect checking beliefs to make sure they are knowledge and revising them if they are not. It was selected for its ability to facilitate social coordination on the truth in this way. Assigning this explanatory role to knowledge allows us to see its importance while sidestepping major points of contention.