On a normative approach to knowledge and epistemic warrant, a belief is
warranted when the believer follows the relevant epistemic norms in forming and maintaining her belief. A belief is knowledge when the belief that is formed and maintained in this way is also (lucklessly) true. So when deliberating about whether
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some belief counts as knowledge, we must consider whether the believer has indeed been following the relevant epistemic norms.
Now every belief is the result of some cognitive process or another. And any cognitive process can be individuated in a variety of ways. But when we are
considering whether the belief is knowledge or not, what we are considering is whether the cognitive process that produced the belief could be legitimately individuated as an instance of the believer following an epistemic norm. If it can be so individuated, then it is warranted. If it is also lucklessly true, then it will count as knowledge. If it cannot accurately be so individuated, then the belief is not
warranted and is not known.
Now whether a belief is known a priori on the suggested construal depends primarily on whether, as Burge put it, it is ‘underwritten by an a priori justification or entitlement that needs no further justification or entitlement to make it
knowledge’ (Burge 1993, p. 461). And whether it is underwritten in this way will depend on which epistemic norms were followed. If those norms are structured such that their antecedent conditions appeal to non-factive ‘seemings’ then the resulting belief is a posteriori. If the relevant norms are not so structured then the belief is warranted a priori. If it is also known, then it is known a priori.
In settling whether a belief is a priori or not then, the right way to individuate the cognitive process that resulted in the belief is clear. It must be individuated as an instance (or a series of instances) of epistemic norm-following. No other way of individuating the cognitive process is relevant. And this allows us to settle conclusively how long or how wide the relevant cognitive process should be taken to be: the relevant norms determine what the proper length and width of the relevant cognitive process is.
Consider the following norms:
(2) Do not believe that p if some alternative proposition incompatible with p has a higher degree of support
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(6) If you are justified in believing that p, and are justified in believing that if p then q, then believe q or give up one of the other beliefs
(10) If it is self-evident that p then you may believe that p without considering any further evidence for it
Now the cognitive process individuated as instances of following each of these norms will have very different lengths and widths from each other. Suppose a believer comes to believe that one plus two equals three in the usual sort of way. Once again we can individuate the process as leading up to this belief in a variety of ways. We could consider it as part of a process that began when she was first introduced to numerical concepts. Or we could think of it as part of a holistic process that stretches all the way out to her background beliefs about her own sanity and what mathematical experts think. But what makes this belief warranted is that the believer arrives at this belief as a result of following norm (10). This means that the relevant way of individuating the process is to take it to be both very short and very narrow: it begins with her considering the proposition, taking it to be blatantly obvious, and concluding that it is true.
However following norm (2) involves a very different methodology. Consider a concrete case of a person’s following norm (2). Suppose a person who believes that p, but then suddenly discovers that another belief she holds, q, is inconsistent with p. After careful deliberation, she decides that overall the evidence in favour of
q is substantially stronger than the evidence in favour of p, so she stops believing
that p and maintains her belief that q. Now what we have described here is what Hawthorne would call a wide cognitive process: the believer has brought to mind and weighed up a range of different considerations in determining whether to believe that p.
Following norm (6) is different from both of these. Suppose a person comes to believe that p after being told that it is true by a highly reliable source. Some time later she discovers that the conditional ‘If p then q’ obtains, and immediately forms the belief that q. Now once again, we could take this process to have begun when she discovered that the conditional obtains, and leapt to the conclusion that
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q. But that cognitive act in isolation is not an instance of following norm (6). The
question of whether the believer is justified in believing that p is relevant to the question of whether or not she has followed (6). If a third party were ask to consider, for example, whether this person knows that q, he would need to
determine whether or not the belief that p was justified. In other words, he would need to view her belief-forming process as a long one; as having begun when she acquired the belief that p and ended much later after she arrived at q.
The point is that different epistemic norms have different demands. Meeting these demands sometimes requires us to consider a wide range of propositions, and other times it requires us to rely upon evidence we received in the past. How long or wide we should take a cognitive process to be can be
definitely determined by considering what epistemic norms are at play in any given example.
So it is not the case that we have no principled means available of determining the appropriate length and width of the cognitive process that produces some belief. If we can determine exactly which epistemic norms would apply to the belief in question, then we can determine how long or wide the cognitive process should be taken to be.
This highlights a crucial advantage that a normative approach enjoys over Hawthorne’s preferred safety account of knowledge. The issue with Hawthorne’s view is that the only restriction on a cognitive process counting as knowledge- producing is that it must be a cognitive process that produces safe beliefs. So all that is required is that it be a process that is reliably veridical in the context in which the believer formed her belief. But, since this is the only requirement, it is difficult to motivate one characterisation of a cognitive process over another. But since a normative approach is explicitly only focussed on whether the belief in question was formed as a result of following an epistemic norm, the question is significantly easier to cope with.
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